The First Demo That I Saw in my Life

This post falls into the category "old personal history of mine". I thought that write once more about how I experienced things, especially because I grew up behind the Iron Curtain in the former communist part of Germany, the DDR or GDR (German Democratic Republic).

People always ask me how it was like, so here is a story that describes one aspect of it, a very specific one though. Not everybody will be able to relate to it, but if you know what computer demos and crack intros are and interested to hear more about it, stick around.

Computer Tales from the Former East Germany

Back in 1987, two years before the Wall fell in Berlin, when my dad was allowed to take the Commodore 128D computer (with monitor and 9 needles printer) home to be able to use it for work there, I thought that this was the happiest moment in my life.

I always wanted to have a computer since I got exposed to one for the first time in either 1985 or 1986 (That first computer wasn't a Commodore, it was actually an Atari 800 XL with Datasette tape without any turbo load hardware tweak). There was no Internet and also no tech support to call, because that support did not extend to the area of the former East German state at that time.

The only thing to go on was the user handbook that came with the computer.

My dad gave me one empty floppy disc (remember, the C128D had a floppy drive build-in) for me to use, which was a awful nice thing to do for him, considering that it was incredibly hard to buy those in the former GDR. The black market price for one 5 1/4 inch double density floppy disk ranged between the equivalent of $100-$200.

First on my mind were of course computer games. I was 13, so what else would you expect. Well, I didn't know anybody else who had a C128D or C128 computer or heard of anybody who got one and the C128/D computers were different from the Commodore 64. You did not get the familiar blue screen with light blue borders and font when you booted the machine up.

So there were at first only two pieces of software that I could use. 1) The "Starwriter" software that my father used for work and 2) the build in C128 BASIC interpreter to run C128 BASIC code (which I did not have yet).

A text processor is fascinating for about a day or two and then gets awful boring so I decided to see if I could do something more interesting with that build in BASIC compiler. Luckily for me, the user manual contained the list plus a brief description of the available basic commands.

I thought to myself, If I don't have a game to run on the machine, then I will change that by writing my own. Well, it was a bit more complicated than I thought, but I made good progress to the point were I experimented with the advanced BASIC features such as Sprites and drawing functions.

In a stroke of luck, one of my class mates heard/read somewhere that the C128D is supposed to be 100% Commodore 64 compatible and that it could be switched to the C64 mode with the command "go64" (or was it "go c64"?!, something like that). I couldn't wait until school was over and my abilities to concentrate on what my teachers said was out the window that afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Back home I tried it and it did not work. What? That cannot be, my C128D was not one without that compatibility I told myself and tried it once more, using different variations of the command with different spellings until the screen flashed and the familiar blue C64 screen appeared with the text "**** COMMODORE 64 BASIC ****, 64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE, READY. followed by a blinking Cursor. Horay! Getting Software was now relatively easy. It only took a friend with a C64, his Datasette (nobody else who I knew had a floppy drive), cassettes with games and to figure out how to transfer a program from the cassette on to my floppy disk.

The first 3 things were relatively easy to get, 4 was a small hurdle I guess, but I did it and cannot remember how it worked, so it might not have been such a big challenge after all.  I think I was not able to transfer all games that I wanted, but I could be wrong, because maybe I was able to copy it, but not able to play it. You have to know that the C128D from my dad's work did not come with a game joystick (dough). There was also no way for me to get one elsewhere. I did not have the financial resources to buy one for East German Money (which would have cost probably 100 or 1000 times my monthly allowance) and as every other East German citizen, I was short on West German money (Valuta) as well. So... NO Joystick.

I remember playing Pole Position, Amidar (or Omidar), Hero, Little Computer People, some ugly Pinball game where I forgot the name and some other games that I cannot remember. There was a Submarine (U-Boot) game that my dad loved to play, but I cannot remember its name to find something like it on the PC for him. No, it was not a simulation game like Silent Service. It was an arcade game. If you got an idea what it could have been, let me know. I'd appreciate it.

Anyhow, I remember that I was not able to play on this computer my all-time favorite 8 bit computer game, which is International Karate (the original), bummer, but nothing is perfect, right?!

The First Demo that I Recognized as What It Was

A friend left me for a few days the datasette and a bunch of cassettes that I could check out what I want to copy on to my floppy, which suddenly became very small and somewhat limiting.

I did copy a program called "Shade", which did not serve any apparent purpose, but looked good and had a fabulous sound unlike anything that I heard before on any computer. It got lost and it took me over 20 years to find out exactly what that program was (It took me only about 10 years to find out what the music was and who created it).

The program was the  Demo/Intro called "Shade" by the group "Newlook" for the Commodore 64 (C64) from 1987

It uses the song "Shades" by Chris Huelsbeck (download MP3 version) which won the open music contest by the German computer magazine/software publisher Markt & Technik in 1986 and launched his career of becoming, next to other musicians such as Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish or Martin Galway, one of the most popular and successful musician on the Commodore 64 Home Computer.

• Video capture with enhanced sound (39 MB) or watch video online at Vimeo.com
• Video capture with original sound (26 MB)

He created the sound tracks for the games R-Type and The Great Giana Sisters, which are also in the Top 100 popular sound tracks on the Commodore 64 ever (Top 100 by http://www.hvsc.c64.org/)

This was the first "Demo" that I got exposed to and recognized as such. It was an independent piece of software, all by itself, like any game or software application that I (or my dad) had at that time.

But compared to games or software applications does this program not serve any practical purpose or function other than to just look at it and enjoy it for what it is. The school of the company where my school sent its students to for the in East Germany mandatory "PA" (Produktive Arbeit), "ESP" (Einfuehrung in die Sozialistische Production) and "TZ" (Technisches Zeichnen) education (and also offered voluntary classes in Computer Sciences, where I got to learn the programming language BASIC for the East German home computers KC-85 1 and KC-87, which looked identical and I don't know what the difference was between them), got for themselves a Commodore 64 computer, which they only used in special occasions. At one of those occasions I brought a copy of this demo with me to show it to the teacher and to follow students, to demonstrate the capabilities of the machine, which was a difference like day and light, in graphics and sound, compared to the first versions of the East German KC computers.

I just started English classes so could not translate the scroller text. The English abilities of the teacher were obviously also limited, because not a single eye-bow was raised during the presentation of the show.

Reading the scroller today makes me smile, when I look back to this moment and what could have been the consequences, if the teacher would have been able to understand the text. :)

The good times were unfortunately much too short in my opinion. It only lasted for a few months when my dad had to take the computer back again to the office. Gosh, what I would have given for not loosing it... a leg, probably. I didn't need a leg to use the computer. Makes sense, right?! Aehm... well, maybe not and sacrificing a leg of mine would also not have helped to get the computer back :(.

The First Cracktro that I Recognized at Was It Was

I don't remember any Cracktros from the Atari 800 and would not bet any money on the question if there were any at that time (1985-1989). In 1987 Commodores popped up everywhere. The Atari 800 was a loner in my world in the years before and the only home computer that I heard of and knew.

I frequently was at home at Another friend who owned a Commodore 64 (do you see a pattern emerging here? hehe) . Anyhow, he had a lot of games from the start where I never found out from where he got them himself. Games were not sold in East Germany, nor any other piece of software for any computer from a capitalist country. Every software, with the exception of any software that might have come with the computer hardware package itself, was a pirated copy and there was nothing anybody could have done about it.

It was at his place during a normal computer gaming session, when I suddenly recognized my first crack intro by a pirate group as what it actually was, a program that did not came from the authors of the game itself, but somebody else who did something to the game that it was possible to do with it was every East German did without having a choice, making a copy of it for somebody else to use on his computer.

I don't know why I did not recognized them before, yeah, never having seen an original in my life ever, makes this task more complicated than you might think.

Also that there was rarely text at first then often in English, which I was just starting to learn made this recognition more complicated.

Anyhow. I have seen that crack intro already a hundred times or more before, but assumed it to be a part of the actual game. Which one was it? Okay, here it is...

It was the Crack Intro titled "Mini Putt" (Cracktro) by the release group Eagle Soft Incorporated (ESI) for the Commodore 64 (C64) from September 1987.

Credits for this intro marvel as far as I know them:

Code: don't know yet
Eagle Image by: Scorpio (Carol) of Eagle Soft
Music (two songs were used interchangeably)

1. Song "Future Knight" by Ben Daglish (download MP3 version)
2. Song "R1D1" by Antony Crowther (download MP3 version)

Video captures of the intro for download

• Video Capture with enhanced sound  (19 MB) - AVI/XVID/MP3 or watch video online at Vimeo.com
• Video Capture with original sound (4.5 MB) - AVI/XVID/MP3

You can download the Demo by Newlook and the ESI Cracktro for the Commodore 64 (D64 and PRG format), the original C64 tunes by Chris Huelsbeck, Ben Daglish and Antony Crowther in SID format and converted to MP3, plus some images, in one convenient ZIP archive (only 17.8 MB) from my Mediafire.com file sharing account here.

Download C64 Disks, Executables, SID Music files and MP3 version of them, of the demo and intro that I talked about in one ZIP archive: C64-CCU-ESIIntro-HuelsbeckShades-D64s-SIDs-MP3s.zip

I hope that you enjoyed my not so short story :)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Copyright Complaint Notice Filings in the Scene? WTF?

It's not that I have already to deal with a lot of crap at the moment that something that just happened a few days ago has to come on top of all of it to "make my day" and "make my head shake in disbelief'".

It started with a big fat screen where you can see the snapshot of below, when I logged into one of my YouTube.com accounts. I was forced to acknowledge the message, before I could do anything else.

I was upset at first, because I thought that once more some idiot would claim something that is not his to begin with to cause trouble and inconvenience for YouTuber's, because they are full of themselves.

Dreyfus - Jarre - Oxygene & The Demoscene

Wouldn't be the first time. I still remember when in February 2008 a company with the name FRANCIS DREYFUS MUSIC came along and claimed the video recording of the PC/MS DOS demo called "Contrast" by the French demo group "Oxygene" from 1996 as their intellectual property that I was supposed to be infringing on. Well, Dreyfus did believe back then that any video with the word "Oxygene" in the title must be automatically infringing on the rights they hold for the music by the French musician Jean Michel Jarre with the same title.

Makes sense, doesn't it? Right ...

Anyhow, I did a Google search for the name of the somebody who claimed ownership of material used in some of my videos. Matt Swoboda, the plaintiff, turns out to be Matt James Swoboda, better known in the scene as "Smash" of Fairlight, Razor 1911, Beam, Insanity, Shadow and a few others.

Realtime Generation

The two video(s) in question used 12 and 45 seconds of a demo from 2008 by Andromeda Software Development (ASD) & Fairlight & Alcatraz, titled "Realtime Generation" (watch demo on Demoscene.tv), where "Smash" actually was one of the guys who created it, thus his claim was not so far fetched and absurd. I don't want to start debates about fair use and all this. I did use a fragment of the demo as back-drop for the intro of two of my amateurish videos with semi-professional background, but non-commercial use. In other words: I spent time on them and didn't receive a penny for it myself.

The full videos in question are available for viewing online and also for download in AVI video format at the following URLs below (in the case that you would like to make up your own mind about the use of the demo material).

Video 1: Download AVI (57 MB) - Watch Video on Facebook (requires FB account)
Video 2: Download AVI (72 MB) - Watch Video on Facebook

Anyhow, I do not intend to start a legal debate here, because that is not the reason why I blog this. My problem is the fact that a scener (Smash) filed an official copyright complaint against another scener, me, for something that could have been resolved quickly via a few emails, a phone or Skype call or chat instead. Since when did this become the means of communication in the scene? The time it took to prepare the official complaint was most likely more than the time it would have taken to check the background of the person behind the videos and to find the means to contact me. I did plaster the URLs to my web pages, including this one and all my other YouTube channels (including SACReleases) on the profile page of the YouTube account that hosted the videos in question (yeah, PAST TENSE is correct here, HOSTED).

Update/Addition: I just also recalled an incident at Dailymotion.com in January this year regarding the same material actually. There was a company called "Toei Animation" who claimed intellectual property ownership of one of the two videos. There was also no advanced email or anything, just a take down based on the claim by that company. I am unaware that anybody involved in the creation of the demo has any ties to that company and that they own anything of that demo. 

Team Mates or Hates?

Gosh, Smash and I were even in the same group once, Razor 1911. Both words in "team mate" seemed to have lost their meaning at one point from what it looks like.

Learn more about my past and present group allegiances here.

Misunderstandings?

I believe that I found Smash'es LinkedIn profile and contacted him via the LinkedIn mail system (asking first, if the Matt Swoboda from the UK, is "my" Matt, who I am trying to get in touch with. A Finish scener with the name "Mandibular Joint Dysfunction" also contacted me via Facebook regarding this issue. He did not refer to the actual source of his information for me to check and follow up on, but I asked him to clarify where he heard of this "misunderstanding" (I hope that this is what it is).

The problem with those complaints in YouTube is that they don't go away and that my one account is now in jeopardy of being suspended because of anything that might comes up. YouTube does not care, double check or listens to anybody than a lawyer who threatens with legal actions in writing. I know this from first hand experience, since I got myself already an account suspended once, because of some BS, which caused some major pain in the ass for me, hours and hours of work lost and the unpleasant experience of "talking to a hand" that completely ignores you.

So resolving this "misunderstanding" means for me also that the official copyright complaint (actually two, one for each of the two videos) will be retracted that YouTube will remove those from my account history. Here is how it looks right now. Not very pretty, isn't it.

Here is the video recording of my two little intros that started all this trouble

Backup Link to Video at Motionbox.com

As you can see, I did some modifications to the original video recording of the PC demo to make it suit my own purposes. Could I given credits? Sure I could have, but I didn't for several reasons. First, I didn't know who did what to be able to give accurate credits (I am still not sure about this part).

Furthermore, I only used tiny fragments of the demo and distorted it with effects and content that I created in front of the original video. The 2nd place demo at the party where Realtime Generation won 3rd place did a homage to some well know PC demos as well and also did not properly credited those, but everybody knew which demos were depicted.

I didn't give it another thought actually.

If you ask the question, how I would feel, if somebody would do the same with my art work, I'd say:
"No Problem"  and I actually made that one clear publicly in 2006 with clarifications added to it in 2008.

Update/Addition: I'd say something, if somebody would rip off my stuff and actively run around claiming that he did it. Not saying anything does not mean making a claim. If you want to know if somebody did something himself, entirely, partially or not at all, ask and see what the answer is.

If credits are "forgotten" and the creator asks for them, I would be the last to deny it to him. It usually boils always down to the question where and how to put them, without having the credits taking over the actual piece or destroy the setting where it is in. I added additional credits to stuff where I missed them myself and also asked others to add credits to their stuff, not always myself, but credits to other artists as well. 

Well, I hope that the the "Matt" at LinkedIn who I contacted is "my" "Smash" and that we will be able to sort things out. The LinkedIn profile says that he works at Sony now. Maybe he spent too much time "under some bad influence". Sony's approach to deal with copyright issues is not what I would call "consumer friendly" (I just say "root kit", do a Google search for "Sony root kit", if you don't know what I am referring to).

We will see. I will write another post, if something comes out of this.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

 Update June 9, 2009.

Somebody pointed me via a comment here at my blog, to the original Pouet.net forum thread where it all started (the one "Mandibular" mentioned in his FB message). I joined the discussion there and addressed more comments than I probably should have, but then it wouldn't be me I guess. Anyhow, the discussion seems to have shifted to over there. It's already three pages long, but I hope that this will not scare you off from checking it out anyway. I hope that in all the BS that also seems to be part of the discussion there actually a resolution will be found that makes everybody happy again.

p.s. Also a message by Smaash (misspelled) turned up. It was sent via the contact form at Cumbrowski.com about one day before the videos were already taken down by YouTube. The message was unfortunately sorted away with all those messages about "link exchanges'", "web development in India proposals" etc.  and I didn't get a chance to look at it in time (yeah, my main computer is still broken, I got a new main board, but now miss a power connector for the GFX card fan to the mother board. I was already checking at RadioShack and other stores, including a PC repair shop to get such stupid connector that fits, but nobody has this. I found something online, got that one shipped as well... and guess what, wrong size! Gosh, how many versions of a three pin cooler fan to mother board connector are there?

Gateway still gives a crap. I hope that they will be out of business soon too. Bastards. 

Update June 18, 2009

I had some extensive email communication going with Smash and tried to elaborate the reasons for my rage and what I saw as the biggest problem with his actions. I thought that I made it already clear enough that I also admit that I made mistakes too.  In case that it was not clear for somebody yet, here some quotes from my emails to Matt.

I admit my own mistake. It taught me the lesson that whatever you put anywhere online, publicly or or not public and not protected, will be out there for anybody to find, if you only look hard enough for it. In this case my experiments of the creation of a short video introduction (there are more of those by the way, nothing I would be particular be proud of, but once they are out there, there is nothing I could do about them now). It was used for something small and semi personal to get some feedback and along the way learn how to do things better (testing is one of the key elements in marketing that you cannot ignore or neglect, no studies in the world can replace actual tests) .

Where there was the discussion about it, I provided honest information about the source of the material and included references and credits. Then it was "over" and I moved on. However, the "pilot" or "test" did not disappear how it usually does in the offline world. If it happens online, it's there virtually forever. I did not think about that somebody would even care about those experiments from yesterday, and certainly did not assume that somebody would have any issue with them.

My biggest mistake was to forget that it can look for somebody else completely different and all brand new, because that person just got exposed to it now and stuff in the digital world does not age or decay. It's there, brand new, like on the day it was created. I also did not include ALL details related to every bit of the content, which gave room for miss-interpretations.

Matt understood the issue and said that he will try to retract the complaint at YouTube.com. That was 6 days ago on Friday June 12, 2009, but today Thursday, June 18, 2009 does it still show in my YouTube account the complaint and that my account is not in good standing.

I provided him with a lot of material regarding the copyright issue on the Internet, including some very bad examples where it is clear that the system is completely messed up and a harm to society in general. I hope that he now also understands my rage about the way he acted on the problem.

He is surely not a large corporation like Sony and just an individual like, but he unfortunately acted like a big corporation and used by extension another big corporation (Google) to get things his way. I believe that he was not aware that the corporate system in place today is truly against individuals and often creates significant collateral damage and overall more harm than good.

I also asked him for his advice regarding Pouet.net. I am still undecided, if I should post once more to apologize to the folks who I gave credits for comments that they did not make or if I should just let it be the way it is. My error was pretty obvious (afterwards) and I also was consistent with it, so folks should have been able to figure it out. I did not get a response regarding that from Mark as well. It is kind of odd, because he usually responded within less than 24 hours to my emails, until Friday.

I will send him another email about this blog update. The matter is still not completely resolved, because the main issue for me is still there and that is the note in my YouTube account. :(

VNV Nation Box Set – Reformation 01

I received today the Reformation 01 box set (limited edition) by my favorite band “VNV Nation” that I pre-ordered at Amazon.com, who still sells it for only $21.xx dollars. (This is not my first exclusive post about VNV Nation. You can check out the other ones to learn more about VNV here and here.)

The limited edition of the Reformation 01 box set by VNV Nation is a real bargain. For little more than the price of a regular album CD you get 2 CD's and a video DVD with 8 tracks recorded at live concerts in Europe (mostly Hamburg, Germany).

Backup Link to Video on Vimeo
Download this video in AVI format in High Definition (1280x720, 81 MB)

Video Notes and Credits: The video above was edited by me and includes snippets from the DVD  that is part of the Reformation 01 box set. It also uses various images that are not part of the box set and video snippets from the viral “Illusion” video with animations by Andrew Huang, which were unfortunately not included in this box set (it would have been the right place for it though :) ). All music by VNV Nation.

I also like to remark that the box set includes the first ever LIVE ALBUM by VNV Nation, so fans who prefer VNV Nation live over the studio recordings (like I do) do not have to fall back on the not 100% legitimate Live album solution by ripping the audio tracks of the previously released Pastperfect Live DVD :). Vnv Nation - Pastperfect Limited Edition.

The latter one was actually suggested by Ronan and Mark from VNV themselves, when I meet them by accident in Berlin and asked them (AGAIN) why there is no VNV Live Album yet. I think I sent them all in all 2 or 3 additional emails before I talked to them in person and after. Well, the message finally “found its way home” hehe.

Ronan Harris, the main guy behind VNV Nation, is very responsive to contact attempts and close to the fans and not such an arrogant and careless asshole like the guys from Depeche Mode (a band that I used to adore for about 20 years of my life :( ). VNV has a MySpace page where you get fresh news and updates via their MySpace blog and also some nice goodies sometimes, like a preview of upcoming CD releases via the MySpace audio player. They did this for this Box Set actually.

 
VNV Nation is also on tour soon. The 2009 tour is called “Faith, Power and Glory”. Some tickets are on sale via Fan Direct sale (cheaper) at a ticket solution that I developed for the most part (and my old company hehe). It’s an older and heavily customized solution, because of it’s unique use for fan direct sales by artists. More tour dates and link to regular ticket purchases are available at this blog post at the VNV MySpace blog.

A new album with the same title as the tour will be released by VNV Nation on June 23, 2009. You can pre-order "Of Faith, Power and Glory" at Amazon.com for only $13.99

Now back to the Reformation 01 box set :)

CD 2 of the set includes in addition to various remixes of known songs also some new material, which was previously unreleased.

Last but not least some comments about the box set itself. It's of high quality, compared to other box sets by other bands that I have seen myself in the past. It also contains a thick booklet that wouldn't fit into a regular CD case. The only bummer here is that the booklet is glued to the box set and thus hard to read in comfort because of the 3 discs next to it (when you unfold the whole set).

You can get a good idea about the quality of the box set by looking at the large version of the product image that was provided by Amazon. Use the zoom feature to get a real close look at the material and the "engraved" VNV Nation logo. That's why is the cover so dark, because it isn't printed color. You can feel it (if you bought it :))

p.s. Yes, the links to Amazon.com are affiliate links and I will get $1 or so commission if you decide to by the set from Amazon, right after you clicked on my link. This is not the reason for this post and if you know me a bit better, you wouldn’t even assume that I would do something like that. But for those folks who don’t know me, be happy about this unnecessary disclaimer and shut up :).

VNV Nation – Reformation 01 – 3 Discs Box Set - Track List

Reformation 01 – CD #1 (the Live Album) 01    Joy              05:24 02    Chrome           04:49 03    Testament        06:22 04    Nemesis          04:37 05    Endless Skies    05:58 06    Farthest Star    05:06 07    Procession       05:26 08    Entropy          05:17 09    Illusion         04:51 10    Arena            05:34 11    Honour 2003      07:06 12    Perpetual        08:47 Note: Sound samples for every track of CD 1 and CD 2 are available for free at the Amazon.com web site.

Reformation 01 – CD #2 (the Remixes) 01  Chrome (27.2 Mhz Remix by Modcom)          06:26 02  Chrome (Sitd Remix)                        04:58 03  Chrome (Apoptygma Berzerk Remix)           04:42 04  Interceptor (ABM Version by VNV Nation)    05:35 05  Nemesis (S.A.M. Remix)                     03:50 06  Carry You (Frozen Plasma Remix)            06:36 07  Still Waters                               07:36 08  Suffer                                     07:00 09  Precipice                                  05:40 10  As it fades (2nd Mvmt. by VNV Nation)      03:31 11  Main Theme (from 'Gene Generation')        02:45 12  Mayhem (from 'Gene Generation')            02:03 13  The Lair (from 'Gene Generation')          02:57 The songs in red are NEW and previously unreleased. I also do not recall the songs from track 10-13, but I wasn’t able to listen to all of them without being distracted to be sure. Well, three new songs as bonus is better than none, but 7 would be more than twice as good hehe.

Reformation 01 – DVD #1 (the Live Videos) 01 Farthest Star     05:15 02 Chrome            04:48 03 Nemesis           06:00 04 Illusion          04:54 05 Homeward          05:42 06 Arena             05:57 07 Honor 2003        06:54 08 Perpetual         08:49 Only Honor 2003 was previously available on DVD Video. It’s a different recording though. A previous live recording of Honor 2003 is one of the hidden “Easter Eggs” of the “Pastperfect” Live DVD. Oops, did I say that out loud? Sorry ;)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Some Google Tools & Services and Other Annoyances

You know how it is… the small annoyances are the ones that bother us the most, especially if you have to deal with the same thing all the time on an almost daily basis. I am going to show you a few of those annoyances that drive me nuts at the moment.

List of Annoyances Covered by this Post

• Annoyance #1 – Google YouTube Tag Subscriptions
• Annoyance #2 – Google YouTube Comments Notification
• Annoyance #3 – Google YouTube Friend Invites Processing
• Annoyance #4 – Google Chrome Pop-Up Blocker
• Annoyance #5 - 4CC Codec Value Case Sensitivity by VirtualDubMod

If you know me, then you know that I usually not simply complain about something, but also provide suggestions and recommendations for solutions to the problem. Maybe you had one or the other issue as well. In that case it would show you that you are not the only person with this issue. If you don’t, then you know about them now. I do this public so maybe we are lucky that somebody reads this, who is actually in the position to do something about one or more of the problems illustrated or somebody reads this who knows somebody who SHOULD read it, because that other person is one of the people who could solve one or more of those problems.

All but one are related to Google products or services and all but one of those related to Google are about their video sharing site YouTube, which I use pretty much daily … rather extensively (having four different accounts there myself, go figure).

Annoyance #1 – Google YouTube Tag Subscriptions

Let me start light with something that I only encountered recently. I never had that issue in the past that it would have been an annoyance, but as you see, things can change over time.

You have the ability in YouTube to subscribe to video updates of other YouTube accounts/channels (I have 4 of those, CirqueDuSoleilGuru would be the most popular one I guess, SACReleases is the second most popular and the remaining two are TurnbeutelvergesserB and CumbrowskiCom) . You also have the ability to subscribe to a certain keyword phrase or word, to get notified, if somebody uploads a video to the site and uses this phrase or word to tag the video. This can be a very effective way to discover video content about things you are interested in and may be not would have found out about yourself otherwise… by coincidence maybe, if you are  lucky.

It works well, as long as the keyword or phrase is unique and highly descriptive of what you are looking for. If the phrase is ambiguous to begin with, it’s already a problem from the get go, but it also happens that previously unique keywords get “poisoned”. Such poisoning happened to the phrase “Circus” to which I subscribed to.

Everything was alright until Britney Spears decided that she had to release a new single with the title “Circus”. Guess what kind of videos I get now for the term “Circus”… right.., Britney Spears videos “ohne Ende”, but that’s not what I am caring about. I am interested in the ancient performing arts involving breathtaking acrobatics and maybe some mindboggling magic and/or amusing clowns.

It would be nice, if I could at least remove the unwanted videos rather quickly. There is no option today. In order to get rid of them in my Subscription/Alert “Inbox” I have to start watching each video first.. one by one. That is really annoying.  In addition to a way to remove videos that I can identify as “not interested in” without watching quickly from the video listing, would it be helpful to be able to configure negative keywords or stop words and/or using advanced search query parameters like AND & OR & NOT to filter results and/or exclude known ambiguous versions of the same keyword phrase,

Annoyance #2 – Google YouTube Comments Notification

Getting a notification about any comment posted to any of your uploaded videos is great, especially if you open up and let people comment and publish those comments without moderating them first (YouTube’s Spam detection routines are actually doing a great job).

Notifications are not only available at your YouTube account, but you also can enable email notification to your primary email address as well.

The problem with this notifications is that you cannot really do much with them as you would probably want to in the one or other case. You can select the notifications and delete them from your inbox (which does not do anything to the actual comment itself). The link to “see all comments” takes you to the same page where the comment that you are looking at can actually be found, if you are lucky. It won’t take you to the comment though and often to a page where this particular comment can nowhere be found. Getting to the actual comment for options usually involves the use of the on-page keyword search (CTRL-F) and clicking of one or more links to get to the page with the comment at all.

There you will finally find all the things that you might want to do with the comment, such as reply to it, mark as spam, remove it all together and maybe even block the whole user, if he frequently posts comments that you manually delete for some reason time and again.

Would it be so hard to make those things already available from the notification message in your inbox? Is it? C’mon, you must be kidding me! :)

Annoyance #3 – Google YouTube Friend Invites Processing

Especially one of my YouTube accounts gets friend invites all the time. Hey, who doesn’t want to be popular and befriended by everybody, right? Well, yeah, but only if that other person really means it and not just tries to befriend you for pure selfish reasons (aka Spam and Attention Whoring).

It takes more time than it should to find out what the real intentions of that other user are, because you don’t have much information about any person who decides to click the “Add to Friends” button on your channel home page. Information that would help with pre-processing the majority of the requests right from the friend invites list screen.

Is the other user a subscriber to your channel? If he is, chances are much better that this person actually cares about what I am doing on YouTube. Did the person add any of my videos to his favorites or any other playlist?

Did the user ever comment on any of my videos, send a video response or personal message? Just a simple YES/NO would be enough. Counts would be even better, but I don’t want to get too demanding here.

Also helpful is the info how many friends that user already has and where he is from. Yes, you can get those two information if you click on the name and visit his channel homepage, but that takes time too and if you do that and press the back button, you won’t get back were you left off, not even to the same section, which makes things twice as bad and even more time consuming.

In my example below you can see how it could look like, if those suggestions would be implemented. Guess which friend request I’d ignore right from that screen without even checking further? Right, the fourth one. Not a subscriber, never fav’ed or bookmarked any of my stuff, never posted a comment or contacted me, but has more friends than I know real people. That user does not care about me and only wants to promote himself. He clicked on “Add as Friend” to as many people he could, maybe even in an automated fashion via a spam tool or script.

Enough of YouTube. There is certainly more than those things that I pointed out, but those are the things that I hate to deal with on a nearly day to day basis. It’s getting old and not necessary really.

Annoyance #4 – Google Chrome Pop-Up Blocker

It is already sad enough that tools like AI Roboform and others do not (cannot?) support the somewhat new Google Chrome web browser. It’s fast, I can attest to that. Yeah, faster than IE (dough) and also faster than FireFox (especially of fully loaded with plug-ins). Google added some tools and features themselves to the browser, such as the Pop-Up blocker, but the bad thing is that this feature fell victim to the wide spread Google syndrome of “smart” (or not) automation with little to no ways for humans to interfere and control the behavior of the feature.

Google’s engineers are often too self-confident that they are able to create a model or algorithm that is capable of predicting the users intentions, needs and goals in every case and at every time, under any possible real life condition and situation. I don’t want to downplay the intelligence of any Google engineer or something like that, but sorry, they should have learned by now that this is simply impossible to do. You can make a good guess and be right most of the time, but you will never be able to get it 100% right every single time.

If you combine this with the disability to manually overwrite unwanted and miss-guessed behavior, you got yourself a classic example of an annoyance on your hands. If you had to use a site that generates legitimate pop-ups that are needed to use that web site properly and each and every one of those pop-ups gets blocked by the browser, requiring additional steps to get to the pop-up window and worse, have close to that action also the option to block all pop-ups entirely and irreversible without the ability to manually get it back, than you will understand what I am so annoyed about.

I hope that my little illustration below shows what I am mean by that. I also added my suggestions to solve those problems to that illustration as well. The simple and short answer is: WHITE LIST option please! Thanks.

Annoyance #5 - 4CC Codec Value Case Sensitivity by VirtualDubMod

Update: I found a solution for this annoyance, but I am not really happy about it. Anyway, the problem goes away, if you install FFDSHOW, an open source video decoding/codecs/filters  package/utility(ies). You can download the latest version of FFDSHOW at AfterDawn.com. I wish I would understand what FFDSHOW does to make it work to be able to fix this problem without the need to install the whole FFDSHOW package. :( 

Okay, Google is now of the hook for the time being. Others create annoyances as well. It’s not an exclusive right that Google has bunked for their products and services. VirtualDub is a nice little (and entirely free) tool for the manipulation and conversation of video files. It has many filters and plug-ins to be able to read various video source formats and to enhance or manipulate those videos. At the end you always get out an AVI file, but you have can have a wide variety of AUDIO and VIDEO encoder options that you can use. AVI is only a very broad and widely supported container, unlike some other video formats, such as Adobe Flash (FLV) or Apple Quick Time (MOV) that are limited in which video and/or audio encoding algorithm can be used.

A popular video codec that I prefer to use for my AVI files is XVID, which is a freeware Mpeg-4 based video codec, like the popular commercial codec Div/X, but IMO better (compression). The codec that was used for the audio and video in an AVI file is noted in the header section of the file that other tools, such as video players like Windows Media Player are able to open that video file and to use the proper decoders to render the video and audio data on to your screen. I use more than one video converter in addition to VirtualDub, such as MP4Converter by 4Media for most video sources and Moyea FLV Converter for Flash Video (FLV) to AVI conversions only. I wrote a special post about the subject of video tools and converters last year, if you are interested in this subject and would like to learn more about it.

Those converters are capable of generating AVI files using the XVID video codec. For whatever reason, those tools write the name (4CC Code) of the codec in lower-case letters into the AVI file header.

For another unknown reason, VirtualDub is case-sensitive when it comes to codec settings in the video file, although “xvid”, “XVID” or “XVid” or “Xvid” always mean the same thing… The 4CC specifications are not case-sensitive. “xvid” and “XVID” therefore cannot be two different video codec variations that could be meant.

VirtualDub does not care. If the codec name in the AVI is “xvid” instead of “XVID”, VirtualDub plays stupid and claims that it does not support the used codec. BS. Of course it does. If I use another free tool to manually change/set the 4CC codec name in the AVI header and change “xvid” to “XVID”, VirtualDub reads and processes that video file without any problems. The video data themselves remained unchanged, only the info in the header was changed. This is a pain in the butt, especially if I want to do batch processing, because I have not found a tool yet that lets me change the 4CC value in an AVI file in a batch process, e.g. via command line options or something like that. I also don’t know how to get the other tools to write XVID in upper-case instead of lower-case into the AVI file headers that they produce.

I did manage somehow on my previous system (before I re-installed everything from scratch) to convince VirtualDub that it can read XVID and also xvid files to then generate new AVI files with XVID used in the header.

I cannot remember how I did that. I tried a number of things with no success so far. If you happen to know the answer to this, please let me know in the comments below. I’d really appreciate it. Until then, why this BS to begin with? Is it so hard for the folks from the VirtualDub open source project to make the tool non-case sensitive when it comes to the 4CC value in the headers of AVI video files? Gee!

Enough Annoyances! I don’t think that anybody in his right mind would have read this whole post, but as I said at the beginning of this post, I felt like having to do this, in the secret hope that somebody will read it, who is in the position to remedy one or more of the mentioned annoyances.

If you had similar or the same problems I had, feel free to tell me and anybody else who reads this post about it. You and me are not alone. Trust me on this one!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Where is the Delirium DVD by Cirque du Soleil?

The Cirque du Soleil show Delirium, which was called a "music concert" rather than a traditional Cirque du Soleil show, was the first experiment by Cirque to transport the experience of a Cirque show from the Big Top into the arena environment to be able to reach a greater audience.

This experiment was obviously successful, because they converted their oldest touring show Saltimbanco to become an "Arena Show". Saltimbanco Arena re-launched in the year 2007.

Delirium was only running between 2006 and 2008, 2 years.
I don't know why they stopped touring with it in 2008, but that is also not the reason why I am writing this blog post.
I watched Delirium in 2006 here in Fresno, California, the first time that a Cirque du Soleil production made it here. It was a good show, different, yes, but different does not mean bad.

The show was obviously filmed by a professional film crew at one time during the shows run, because in summer 2008 Cirque announced something unusual. I cannot recall that Cirque ever did something like it in the past.

Delirium Shown in Movie Theaters

They announced the screening of Delirium in movie theaters. It was only shown at selected movie theatres and only for a few days. I missed that and thought that it will be running longer, like a movie release. But I was lucky, they announced "Delirium Encore", another screening of the show at local theaters. There were only three screenings, the main one on Wednesday, October 15 at 7:00 PM and then two more, each at midnight on the following weekend on Saturday, October 18 at 12:00 AM and on Sunday, October 19 at 12:00 AM.

I saw it was my family on the Wednesday. We were the only ones in the theater, except for one other group of 3 or 4 people. I recorded a little bit of the show with my Flip Camera and used the material for a 7:24 minutes long promotional video, but lost by accident the raw recording (40-45 minutes) that I made shortly after. I was not too much upset about it, because I expected the DVD to be released by Christmas anyway.

I posted a 28 minutes video with the complete hula hoops and hand-balancing act included two months earlier in August, after the announcement of the release of the show in theaters, all in the expectation that the DVD release is not far in the future anyway. Now it is March 2009, five months after Delirium Encore and still no DVD release of the show in sight, what's up with that?

Where is the DVD?

An user with the name "funplyr69" posted a comment about one week ago at the video of the Delirium Encore trailer at YouTube.com that he contacted Cirque du Soleil to inquiry about the release of Delirium on DVD and got the response that

"there was currently no plan for a release but that there could be in the future." (video with comment at YouTube)

WHAT? Why the heck would they do that?

He stated correctly that Cirque released in the past all of their shows on VHS and/or DVD, except for their resident shows in Las Vegas.

I also created a video where I talked about this issue.

Backup link to video on YouTube.com
Download the video in AVI format and 720x480 pixels resolution at MediaFire.com

Spin Off to Las Vegas Shows

In the case of the Las Vegas shows, I believe that the reason for not publishing a DVD is MGM who owns all the Las Vegas properties where Cirque du Soleil shows are running.

But that changed now too. I know about a pirate release of the recording of show KA at the MGM Grand hotel and casino. I am not talking about a shaky recording by somebody sitting in the audience with a cheap digital video camera, no, a quality recording, fully edited and almost perfect DVD quality.

The NFO file of that pirate release states:

All Cirque du Soleil shows became eventually available on DVD, even while they are still running and touring around the world. The only exception is the Las Vegas shows, which all happen to run at MGM properties only.

Cirque must have signed an exclusivity agreement with MGM, from how it looks like. Franco Dragone, the famous former Cirque du Soleil director, who directed many of CDS shows, including Alegria, Mystere and "O", split from Cirque to found his own company. Franco Dragone created a Cirque du Soleil like show called "Le Reve" for Steve Wynn's latest Las Vegas property, the "Wynn Las Vegas".

The exclusivity agreement must be limited to Las Vegas only, because Cirque created and launched a show in Asian new "Las Vegas", Macao, China last year, called "Zaia" and that show runs at the Venetian Macao, which is owned by Sands Corp. and not MGM, who also operates casino and entertainment properties in Macao as well.

I am certain that the reason why no DVD release exists for any of the currently SIX and later this year SEVEN show productions is MGM and their old fashioned and paranoid management.

The oldest show launched almost 15 years ago and stills no DVD release of it in sight. A large amount of segments became public naturally through promotional ads, documentaries, news reports and other media releases, but never an entire show, with all consecutive pieces in place and consistent format of video and audio.

This is a first now. Cirque du Soleil shows (Circus a la carte) is a live experience that no canned version will ever be able to replace. For this reason I am convinced that this "pirate" release of the show will not hurt Cirque nor MGM ticket sales for the show in the years to come.

I dare to say that the opposite will be the case. The recording will only function as better advertisement for the show than anything that is currently out there already.

They probably will lose on DVD sales, but no, wait, they won't, because they do not sell any recording of the show on DVD, except for a behind the scenes/making of documentary, which might won't sell as good now anymore, since it is also part of this release as well.

If MGM does not like to miss out on revenue and profits, then they have to release their own official DVD version of the show.

People will eventually find this release, because nothing else like it exists at the moment... If the choice that people have includes only downloading a pirated show recording or no show at all, many will decide to choose the pirated version, with only little or no remorse, because MGM prevents people from being able to make the right choice and buy the legitimate version of it.

As long as we agree that the purpose of copyright laws is still to make sure that artists are being compensated for their work and creations and not as a tool to execute a real form of censorship, which I define as the prevention of access to content and/or information that are of interest for the general public and for the benefit of the society as a whole, if access would be possible), then nobody should ever feel the wrath of the Justicative arm of the government.

Most of the free world guarantees rights to its people to be able to access information without censorship via fundamental laws or constitutions, which means that nobody would have to fear, facing positional imprisonment or monetary penalties/fines for executing those rights in the real world.

List of Cirque du Soleil shows and the year the show was launched at MGM properties in Vegas:

- 1994 - Mystere at Treasure Island
- 1998 - "O" at the Bellagio
- 2003 - Zumanity at the New York, New York
- 2004 - KA at MGM Grand
- 2006 - The Beatles "Love" at the Mirage
- 2008 - Criss Angel's Believe at the Luxor

... And later this year in 2009 an "Elvis" themed show at the MGM City Center, which is currently under construction. MGM also owns the Mandalay Bay, Excalibur and Monte Carlo properties in Vegas (I hope that I didn't miss any).

and also

I hope that this release will function like a sticky note at the tip of a baseball bat that gets slammed into MGM Executive faces with the words:

"Release freaking DVDs of the Cirque shows at your properties in Vegas! Damn it!"

Amen to that. I hope that this will have the desired effect on MGM and/or Cirque du Soleil.

I also hope that Cirque du Soleil will change their opinion about the release of the Delirium DVD. I guess I will continue to gather up as much video material from the show I can get my hands on, to create another video of the show, which will be even longer than 28 minutes, like the last one.

Notes to Copyright Laws and Implications

Stuff is easier to find on the Internet than it used to be in the past. We will get the content... slowly and with pain staking work and not over night, but eventually we will get there. All this only, because content produces hide content that is in demand in their vaults rather then making the content available FOR PAY that people can easily get access to the content without jumping through hoops and doing it "illegally". Illegal is too hard of a word in this case, because the only crime committed is a violation of "Copyright Laws" that is supposed to protect the creators of content from getting robbed of their intellectual property and not to prevent access to that content in general.

If the content has implication on people and society, this withholding of content would be called "censorship".

If I want to pay you for your work that you have already done and you don't make it available, but it gets out to become accessible anyway, then accessing this content should not be against the law, due to the fact that It is impossible to obey to the law and compensate the artist for his work. If the content is made available for pay (in a way that follows common sense business rules and pricing), then you might call it unlawful, if the same content is being acquired without paying, because it was possible for the person to obey to the law, he had a choice.

As a side note: I think that in some cases copyright protection should be removed, if the material is of great importance for history and society itself. I am referring to footage of events of historic significance, such as news images. In those cases copyright becomes willingly or not a tool for censorship that prevents people from educating themselves about the facts of historic events

Additional Links to Delirium Videos

• Cirque du Soleil's Delirium, a 28 Minutes video (split up) on YouTube, including the complete Hula Hoops and Hand balancing Act: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
• 7:27 minutes video on YouTube.com about my experiences from the Delirium Encore event on October 15, 2008. I split the video into 3 parts for some reasons: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
• Official Delirium trailer for movie theater release from August 2008. Video on YouTube.com

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

File Archiving - Collection Management and Organization

I am a collector! More correct would be to say that I hate to throw stuff and that I try to accumulate any data I can get my hands on about any subject of great interest to me.

This must be a trait that I inherited from my dad, who drives my mom nuts with his collector habits.

My Dad's Collecting Habit

The problem that my dad has is the fact that he collects only physical stuff, such as Coins (legal tender coins only), Stamps (West German and American only), Post cards from cities and towns with crest of that town on it (a shi*tload of towns in Europe have their own crest and are only happy to print them on post cards of their city, much to the dismay of my mother), post cards with only a single picture, which must be a true aerial photograph (no picture from a tall building, mountain or anything like that), Locomotives and box cars in model format, manufactured by the former East German company "TT-Eisenbahnen" (shut down a couple years after the wall fell, but still alive and supported by fans and model train owners).

I think that is it... I hope that I did not miss any. As you can see, always very specific subjects, but then more than one subject, which created a slight inventory problem for my parents, which was only resolved when my sister and me moved out into our own places as soon as possible (I moved out with 19, but my parents paid for the basic rent hehe).

My Own Collection Habits from the Past

I used to collect stamps as a kid (only "Space" and "Astronomy" motives) and for a brief period of time "crown caps" where the product or company name was printed on the metal cap. This was rarely done in East Germany, but typical in the Western countries. I abandoned this collection around the time when the wall came down. Go figure. The only physical thing that I collected since 1982 until today are the print issues of the oldest and most popular (of only 3 or 4 or so) East German comic magazine called "Mosaik", which was published monthly since December 1955.

The other physical stuff is not really collecting, because if there is not much to collect, then I don't call it a real collection, even if I have everything (or most) of it. Into this category would be my Cirque du Soleil DVDs and CDs and my VNV Nation stuff and support as a fan of the band.

Digital Collections

However, my collector habit manifested itself in its full extend on the computer where the stuff that you collect is purely digital in nature and thus only uses very little storage space (compared to physical collections). It started when I did the Warez stuff and even more so, when I ran my own BBS. I automatically came across (and got a copy) the most recent software that mattered in those days (worthless junk remains worthless junk and is not worth stashing  up anywhere, even if it is digital junk). I never threw away or deleted any software that I had a copy (or original of), even if the software was too old for "trading" in Warez boards and I also never used the software myself ever. I had it, that was all that mattered.

My software collection was unfortunately destroyed by the German Police, who took away any data storage media that was not an original and they could find during the raid of my apartment (because of my BBS "Closed Society") back in spring 1997. That was the part that hurt me the most... they destroyed everything... it was not just stored somewhere else to still exist as a whole, but inaccessible to me.

Anyhow, things changed with the Internet. A lot of old and forgotten stuff by mainstream culture can now be found online. Not only software like games, but other things that were created as well. I was interested in computer art for example, specifically ANSI and ASCII text art and pixel art. I created stuff myself. I was also interested in the demoscene, that produced and still produces tons of new demos, created by folks like me for the pure sake of creating them and showing them off.

The copyright situation for most of this old stuff is unclear, not specified or simply not enforced by anybody who could make claims of the intellectual property created just for fun, without commercial background. In other cases is the content still officially "copyright protected", but the owner is long out of business or lost any interest in his own property, because he thinks that it does not have any commercial value anymore. I wrote about those things in the past already.

I have a bunch of collections of various kinds. Art, Pixel Art Fonts, Pixel Art Logos, Music, Software.... or using a  simple word that by the end of the day categorizes them all... ...Files.

I am not as bad as Jason Scott from textfiles.com who's collecting habits and urges dwarf mine in comparison.

Keeping Stuff Organized

Organizing these vast amount of items, which are in most cases ridiculous small in size for today's standards, is a pain in the neck and time consuming. I frequently stumble across collections created by others to the same subject that is of interest to me and sorting stuff out, is usually not that easy. Most of those collections are simply a dump of hundreds or thousands of files, each item packed with ZIP, RAR, LHA etc. and then packed together ones more to a multi-part RAR archive or ISO DVD/CD image.

The stuff I usually do with each of those "dumps" is the same, so I wrote myself some small scripts to make things easier for me and to speed up the archiving and sorting process.

The collection that I download are usually just dumps of many files all lumped into a single directory ones you unpacked the RAR archive or ISO image. I always break those up and sort them into individual sub directories by the first letter of the title of each item. The file names are in almost every case the title of the software, demo production, image, mod file, PDF document, text file etc. So I always have to create 27 directories (A-Z plus one for all titles that start with a number, titled 0-9) and then move the files to their respected directories.

An index of all the files is usually also missing to my script is generating one for me. A clean and simple index, which you could not achieve without manually tweaking it, with the standard DIR command in MS DOS.

My Free Helper Scripts

You can download the source scripts packed into a single ZIP archive: !archive_scripts_src_roysac.zip

This batch file creates sub directories "0-9", "A", "B" ... "Z", If they do not already exist (script: !folders.vbs) and then moves all files in the current directory to their corresponding sub folders (part of batch: !organize.bat). After the files were moved, an index file is created (script "!dirlist.vbs") with the name "!" + the current folder name + ".txt". The index file lists all files in the previously created directories. It ignores any other sub folder that might exists in the same dir.

All this is done by three scripts. You only have to run the main one. It calls the other two when needed. The script does not have or require any parameters or configuration options. Just copy the three files into the folder where you dumped all the files and run "!organize.bat".

!organize.bat Script

@echo off

REM      !organize.bat 

REM      Batch File by Carsten Cumbrowski, March 2009

REM       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REM      Required support files used by this script:

REM       - !folders.vbs

REM       - !dirlist.vbs

REM      PURPOSE

REM       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REM      This batch file creates sub directories "0-9", "A", "B" ... "Z"

REM      If they do not already exist and then copies all files in the 

REM      current directory to their corresponding sub folders

REM      (Yeah, that's why all of the script files start with a "!" in the file name)

REM      After the files were moved, an index file is created

REM      with the name "!" + the current folder name + ".txt"

REM      The index file lists all files in the previously created directories

REM      Note: the script ignores other sub directories that might

REM      exist in the current folder, also files that don't start with

REM      0-9 or A-Z (a-z) in the name are ignored

REM       -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REM      Copyright: NONE, Use it! Improve it! Share it!

cls

REM -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

REM Create Sub Directories 0-9, A, B ... Z If they not exist

REM -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

echo Creating Sub Directories 0-9, A, B ... Z ...

wscript !folders.vbs

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

REM Move files into their respective sub directories

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

echo Moving Files to Sub Directories ...

move 0*.* 0-9\

move 1*.* 0-9\

move 2*.* 0-9\

move 3*.* 0-9\

move 4*.* 0-9\

move 5*.* 0-9\

move 6*.* 0-9\

move 7*.* 0-9\

move 8*.* 0-9\

move 9*.* 0-9\

move a*.* a\

move b*.* b\

move c*.* c\

move d*.* d\

move e*.* e\

move f*.* f\

move g*.* g\

move h*.* h\

move i*.* i\

move j*.* j\

move k*.* k\

move l*.* l\

move m*.* m\

move n*.* n\

move o*.* o\

move p*.* p\

move q*.* q\

move r*.* r\

move s*.* s\

move t*.* t\

move u*.* u\

move v*.* v\

move w*.* w\

move x*.* x\

move y*.* y\

move z*.* z\

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

REM Create !<FolderName>.txt Index File 

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

echo Create !<FolderName>.txt Index File ...

wscript !dirlist.vbs

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

REM Done!

REM -------------------------------------------------------------------

echo done! 

echo.

pause

!folders.vbs Script

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Script Name: !folders.vbs

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'VBScript by Carsten Cumbrowski, written in March 2009

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Purpose: Creates Sub Folders  "0-9", "A","B" ... "Z" 

'         in the current folder, if they do not exist already

'         The Script was created for the use with collection

'         of scripts and batch files for archiving and fileing

'         of software and file collections.

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Parameters: No Parameters Required or Supported

'            Simply run the script from the DOS command prompt

'            in Windows by typing "wscript !folders.vbs" 

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Copyright: NONE, F**k that shit! Use it! Improve it! Share it!

'---------------------------------------------------------------

Dim oFso, a

Set oFso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

if NOT oFso.FolderExists("0-9") then

  oFso.CreateFolder("0-9")

end if

For a = 65 to 90

  if NOT oFso.FolderExists(chr(a)) then

    oFso.CreateFolder(chr(a))

  end if

Next

Set oFso = Nothing

!dirlist.vbs Script

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Script Name: !dirlist.vbs

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'VBScript by Carsten Cumbrowski, written in March 2009

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Purpose: Generates a .txt file with the name "!" + name of 

'         current folder. The text file contains a list of all

'         files in the sub directories with the names "0-9",

'         "A","B" ... "Z" and totals for the number of files

'         and size in bytes of each sub folder and in total.

'         The Script was created for the use with collection

'         of scripts and batch files for archiving and fileing

'         of software and file collections.

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Parameters: No Parameters Required or Supported

'            Simply run the script from the DOS command prompt

'            in Windows by typing "wscript !dirlist.vbs" 

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Copyright: NONE, F**k that shit! Use it! Improve it! Share it!

'---------------------------------------------------------------

'Declaration of Constants

Const ForAppending = 8

Const SeparatorLength = 70

'Declaration and Initialization of Work Variables and Objects at Runtime

Dim oFso: Set oFso= Wscript.createobject("scripting.fileSystemObject")

Dim sFolderPath: sFolderPath = oFso.getAbsolutePathName("")

Dim oFolder: Set oFolder = oFso.GetFolder(sFolderPath)

Dim sFilePath: sFilePath = oFso.GetAbsolutePathName("!" & oFolder.Name & ".txt")

'Declaration of Un-Initialized Work Variables

Dim oSubFolder, aFiles

'Declaration of Work Variables with Initial Values

Dim iFolderFileCount: iFolderFileCount = 0

Dim iFolderByteCount: iFolderByteCount = 0

Dim iFileCount: iFileCount = 0

Dim iByteCount: iByteCount = 0

Dim sFileList: sFileList = ""

'Check if an old Listings File Already Exists and Delete it

if oFso.FileExists(sFilePath) then

   oFso.DeleteFile sFilePath, true

end if

Dim oFile: Set oFile = oFso.OpenTextFile(sFilePath, ForAppending, true, -2)

oFile.WriteLine ""

oFile.WriteLine "Content of: " & oFolder.Name

oFile.WriteLine replace(space(SeparatorLength)," ","=")

oFile.WriteLine ""

'Process Sub Folders of Current Work Folder

For each oSubFolder in oFolder.SubFolders

   if oSubFolder.Name = "0-9" or _

      ( len(oSubFolder.Name) = 1 and asc(left(oSubFolder.Name,1))>= 65 and _

      asc(left(oSubFolder.Name,1))<= 90 ) then

   'Only process Sub Folders "0-9", "A","B" ..."Z" and ignore the rest

    Set oFolderFiles = oSubFolder.Files

      'Get Files in Sub Folder and Build List

    For each oFolderFile in oFolderFiles

         'oFso.GetFileName

       sFileList = sFileList & oFolderFile.Name & vbcrlf

         iFolderFileCount  = iFolderFileCount + 1

         iFolderByteCount = iFolderByteCount + oFolderFile.Size

       iFileCount = iFileCount + 1

         iByteCount = iByteCount + oFolderFile.Size

    Next

     oFile.WriteLine replace(space(SeparatorLength)," ","-")

     oFile.WriteLine "Folder: " &  oSubFolder.Name

     oFile.WriteLine replace(space(SeparatorLength)," ","-")

     oFile.WriteLine "Total: " &  formatnumber(iFolderFileCount,0) & " files"

     oFile.WriteLine "Total Size: " &  formatnumber(iFolderByteCount,0) & " bytes" & _

                     " (" & formatnumber(iFolderByteCount/1024,0) & " KB / " & _

                     formatnumber(iFolderByteCount/1024000,0) & " MB)" 

     oFile.WriteLine replace(space(SeparatorLength)," ","-")

     oFile.Write sFileList

     oFile.WriteLine ""

     sFileList = ""

     iFolderFileCount = 0

     iFolderByteCount = 0

   end if

Next

oFile.WriteLine replace(space(SeparatorLength)," ","=")

oFile.WriteLine oFolder.Name

oFile.WriteLine "Total: " &  formatnumber(iFileCount,0) & " files"

oFile.WriteLine "Total Size: " &  formatnumber(iByteCount,0) & " bytes" & _

                " (" & formatnumber(iByteCount/1024,0) & " KB / " & _

                formatnumber(iByteCount/1024000,0) & " MB)" 

oFile.WriteLine ""

oFile.Close

Set oFile = Nothing

Set oFolder = Nothing

Set oFso = Nothing

I hope that you might also find use for those little but helpful scripts. If not, I hope that you enjoyed my little personal trick back in time about my collecting habits. If you are a collector like me, then you can probably relate to those things without any problems. If you are not, then you might got a nice laugh out of it instead. hehe.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC 

Gateway Sucks and Other Problems with PCs

Hard words during holiday times you might think, but if some corporate Assholes try to ruin your holiday spirit, you might would feel the same as I do. To say it only in a few words: Never ever buy a Gateway Computer!. Gateway sucks and they screw you over with a smile in their face. "Merry Christmas!" Don't come back whining later, because I told you.

What's the deal with Gateway? I posted in great detail about it at my other blog over a month ago. That's right, over one freaking month ago and guess what, my PC is still broken. No repair, no nothing.

The hardware problem slows me down and also causes stress (what surprise) and anger. I am behind with a bunch of stuff, directly or indirectly as a result of the malfunctioning PC.

This is only one issue in a long list of problems that I had and have with PCs lately. After all the hassle and problems with Windows, which makes you waste a lot of time all on its own, the hardware issues are not needed to make bad things even worse.

I was close to trashing the notebook (which would have been a bad idea), so I realized that I had to do something for anger management and to channel my negative energy into something that is not destructive... like creating a video :).  Here is the result... it is actually pretty funny although you could also call this humor cynical sarcasm or something like that.

Backup URL to Video at Google Video.

You can download the original AVI video at Mediafire.com

I talked about buying a PC for a while now and came to the point where I am pretty much ready to get a Macintosh. I had some communication with Chris Pirillo and he suggested that I wait a little bit longer, because there is a product line update due by Apple pretty soon.

I am using a PC since January/February 1991. That are over 17, almost 18 years. The time that I spent on a Macintosh in my whole life can be measured in minutes. So a switch is not only a technical decision, it would also be an emotional one, almost like a divorce.

Well, it ain't going to happen this year, earliest next month in January 2009. I guess that the switch will be my "new years resolution". I hope that you, the reader of this blog, do not have issues like I do, at least not during the holidays and hope that you will have a good time with friends and family.

Cheers and Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa to you! Chances are slim that I write another prost during the upcoming Christmas days tomorrow and after.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

VNV Nation's Illusion, Online Video and Ronan Harris

I mentioned it on several occasions that the VNV Nation, a British EBM/Industrial act, is my favorite band for several years now. Several things happened to me recently, which are related to VNV Nation and interesting enough to write about them publicly, so here we go.

A Coincidental Marriage Made in Heaven

Somebody else mixed the song "Illusion" by VNV Nation with the video "Doll Face" by Andy Huang (Andrew Thomas Huang), then still with Root Film, and uploaded it to YouTube.com over one year ago. It is now approaching the 900,000 views mark.

I re-edited and uploaded the video under my account (kind of a dupe), just to make sure that it is there and not getting lost. I also changed the intro and end credits to pay all necessary dues to the respective parties appropriately. I updated the audio too, replacing it with a high quality rip from the album, while I was at it. The main video is based on the original QuickTime file of the "Doll Face" animation. The music and video seem to be made for each other and fit perfect.

Illusion from Carsten Cumbrowski on Vimeo.

Backup URL to video on YouTube.com

The video is also available for download in .AVI format (XVID, Lame MP3) via MediaFire.com here.

Although it is not one of my favorite VNV Nation songs, I cannot deny that it touched me nevertheless.Another interesting part about this video is that it got the attention by Ronan Harris from VNV Nation himself, who did not pull the video, because of copyright infringement and tried to get in contact with the animation creator Andy Huang from Los Angeles, California instead.

They met in October 2008 and plan to work on some new projects together in the future. This video, although not officially a VNV music video was silently acknowledged and approved, used now for viral marketing on the Internet. It contains credits for the creators after all.

Ronan Harris, "Mr.VNV Nation" also wrote about this video at his MySpace blog earlier this month. The song "Illusion" was not released as a single and is only available on the 2007 VNV Nation album "Judgement" (track number 8), published in the United States by Metropolis Records.

To learn more about VNV Nation, visit their official web site at VNVNation.com or their MySpace page at MySpace.com/VNVNation, which is maintained by Ronan Harris personally.

Two Way Communication with my Favorite Band

How do I know about all this? Well, I contacted Ronan via MySpace.com about the video, without knowing that he was already aware of it. I told him not to have the video pulled (because that was not my intention), but to contact Andy, get permission to use the video for an official music video and release the song with this video as an official single. I am an Internet marketer, who also spent some time on online video now, so I kind of knew quite a bit what I was talking about. It was not just amateurish Blah Blah.

Ronan was already working on getting in personal contact with Andy and had already a meeting with him arranged during the short VNV Nation West Coast tour in October/November 2008, where Ronan also worked as DJ for a special event in Los Angeles.

Ronan decided not to pursue the idea of releasing the song as single, which I still believe is a mistake. It has the material for mainstream success and would maybe top the commercial success of the VNV Nation single "Genesis", which made it to number 67 in the German Media Control Charts, along with making it to number 1 in the German Alternative Charts (DAC).

If you like the music, you can buy the "Judgement" album by VNV Nation, which was published by Metropolis Records in the United States in April 2007 via Amazon.com here.

I had some email communication with Ronan where he mentioned that he is looking into doing more with online video, but thinks that it is to costly and too hard to do. I sent him a long response where I encouraged him to do more online video and also provided some tips and suggestions for the content that he could produce and debunked the myth that video production cost for online video are high and not affordable.

I did not get a response to this email yet, Ronan was also on the road, but I hope that he will check some of my suggestions and moves ahead with this idea. I also bugged him about an official VNV Nation Live album, which still does not exist.

Okay, there is the "Pastperfect" Live DVD from 2004 and I ripped the music to burn it on a music CD. That is not perfectly legal, but Mark Jackson from VNV Nation personally suggested to me to do this, back in 2005.

Pastperfect Touches of the Past

Talking about the Pastperfect DVD by VNV Nation, which you can get here btw. The spelling as one word, rather than "Past Perfect", which would be grammatically correct, was done intentionally by VNV Nation, just FYI. ...

I put months ago the DVD intro up on YouTube, which is a cool Metropolis-Style like animation, very short, only 1:30 minutes in length, but pretty cool.

Backup Link to Video at YouTube.com

You can download this video in AVI format at MediaFire.com here.

The Metropolis-Style animation was created by the German Media Agency "Raumgleiter" and the great epic music is a remix of the classic "Romeo and Juliet (Julia) - Suite No. 2: Montagues and Capulets", composed by Sergej Prokofieff (1891-1953) (also spelled Prokofiev) in 1936.

I learned all that, when I did some research about it, after another YouTube.com user asked me about the music.

It was true, the music was not typical VNV Nation stuff and sounded familiar, but I did not really think about it, until it was brought up recently. I thought that it is an interesting fact to share.

I also recommend checking out the 3:48 minutes long DVD trailer/promo video for the "Pastperfect" DVD from 2003, which is pretty cool too and also uses some of the video footage from the DVD intro video. It is also available for download in AVI format via MediaFire.com, here.

Enough of EBM/Industrial music and VNV Nation for today :)

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Roy/SAC Homepage

Dancing Around the World, Paid For, Everything Inclusive

If you did not hear about Matt Harding yet, then it is about time. He is the guy that became famous for "dancing on the Internet", okay, there are a bunch of guys that are "famous" doing that, but he is the one who did it in public at places around the whole globe.

  The story goes like this...

1. A 32 year old deadbeat who was born in Connecticut, USA and ended up working for a company in Brisbane, Australia decided in 2003 to quit his job and use the money he had saved to do a trip through Asia until he was broke.
2. During the usual posing for tourist photo graphs and home videos as proof for his friends and family that he was at the places he said he was, a friend suggested to do his funny dance, the only dance Matt knows and do that instead of the usual boring posing.
3. He did that for the rest of his trip until he ran out of money. He published his short videos on a web site that he mainly created for his family to check what he was doing and where.
4. The stuff went somehow "viral" on the Internet thanks to social media. It also caught the attention of a company called Stride Gum, who thought that doing more of this kind of videos sponsored by the Stride Gum brand would be a fantastic idea. Matt thought so too, especially when he was told that Stride pays for the whole thing, everything inclusive.
5. The result is his second video, which made him even more famous.
6. Seeing one dude dancing alone got kind of old when Matt had an idea. How about having people dancing with him, people who contacted Matt over the Internet. Stride thought too that it is a great idea and off he was for the third trip around the globe.
7. That video is the 2008 video  and made Matt even more famous. So famous in fact that he was asked to talk at social media conferences etc.

His 2006 and 2008 videos were viewed over 11 Million times EACH on YouTube alone! "Nicht schlecht Herr Specht" as we say in Germany to something like that.

Here are some interesting facts about the locations that Matt visited.

Three videos were released, labeled 2005, 2006 and 2008. Each with the results of an entire trip lasting several months to over one year. The first video from 2005 included 20 locations, the video from 2006 included 36 and the last one from 2008 included a whopping 69 places.

There is also an out-takes video for the 2006 trip with a few locations that are unique and did not make it into the final video. That means that the actual number of places visited is higher than the ones I mentioned.

Unique Places shown in his 3 Videos Abu Simbel, Egypt Agra, India Ala Archa Gorge, Kyrgyzstan Alhambra, California Amsterdam, The Netherlands Angkor Wat, Cambodia Antseranana, Madagascar Area 51, Nevada Atlanta, Georgia Auckland, New Zealand Auki, Solomon Islands Austin, Texas Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Bangkok, Thailand Batik, Morocco Beijing, China Bengal Jungle, India Berlin, Germany Brisbane, Australia Brussels, Belgium Buenos Aires, Argentina Cape of Good Hope, South Africa Chakachino, Zambia Chicago, Illinois Christmas Island, Australia Chuuk, Micronesia Cologne, Germany Delhi, India Demilitarized Zone, Korea Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dublin, Ireland East Jerusalem, West Bank Easter Island, Chile Ephesus, Turkey Galapagos Islands, Ecuador Giant's causeway, Northern Ireland Guam Gurgaon, India Half Moon Caye, Belize Hanoi, Vietnam Haute-Picardie, France Impenetrable Forest, Uganda Istanbul, Turkey Kilimanjaro Summit, Tanzania Kjeragbolten, Norway Kuwait City, Kuwait Lancelin, Australia Lemur Island, Madagascar Lisbon, Portugal Lisse, The Netherlands London, England Los Angeles, California Luang Prabang, Laos Machu Picchu, Peru Madrid, Spain Mexico City, Mexico Miami, Florida Mokolodi, Botswana Monte Alban, Mexico Montreal, Quebec Monument Valley, Arizona Moscow, Russia Mulindi, Rwanda Mumbai, India Munich, Germany Mutianyu, China Neko Harbor, Antarctica Nellis Airspace, Nevada New York, New York Panama Canal, Panama Paris, France Paro, Bhutan Petra, Jordan Poria, Papua New Guinea Prague, Czech Republic Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rock Islands, Palau Routeburn Valley, New Zealand Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia San Francisco, California Sana'a, Yemen Sao Paulo, Brazil Seattle, Washington Seljalandsfoss, Iceland Seoul, South Korea Siberia, Russia Singapore Sossusvlei, Namibia South Shetland Islands Soweto, South Africa Stockholm, Sweden Stone Town, Zanzibar Suhbaatar, Mongolia Sydney, Australia Tagaytay, The Philippines Taipaei, Taiwan Tel Aviv, Israel Teotihuacan, Mexico Thimphu, Bhutan Tikal, Guatemala Timbuktu, Mali Tokyo, Japan Tongatapu, Tonga Tsavo, Kenya Vancouver, British Columbia Vava'u, Tonga Venice, Italy Very Large Array, New Mexico Wadi Rum, Jordan Wainivilase, Fiji Warsaw, Poland Washington D.C., USA Westport, Connecticut Yangon, Myanmar

Unique Countries of Islands Antarctica Argentina Australia Belgium Belize Bhutan Bolivia Botswana Brazil Brunei Cambodia Canada Chile China Czech Republic Ecuador Egypt Fiji France Germany Guam Guatemala Iceland India Ireland Israel Italy Japan Jordan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Madagascar Mali Mexico Micronesia Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Namibia New Zealand Norway Palau Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Peru Poland Portugal Russia Rwanda Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Taiwan Tanzania Thailand The Netherlands The Philippines Tonga Turkey Uganda UK United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zanzibar Places he visited Twice Brisbane, Australia London, England Los Angeles, California San Francisco, California Sydney, Australia Tokyo, Japan* Places he visited on every trip New York, New York Seattle, Washington   *Tokyo actually appears three times in his videos, but only in two of them and not three. Tokyo is the only real duplicate within any of his videos. Tokyo appears twice in the 2008 video. Once in location #29 and the second time in location #42. Also, if you look at the overall data, he rarely made it to the same place twice. 8 places that he visited more than once, out of 114. ... not bad.

YouTube - Where in the Hell is Matt Harding? - Megamix

Link to my megamix video  on YouTube, also available for download in .AVI (XVID/MP3) format and 640x480 resolution via Mediafire.com at this URL.

Here is a link to Matt's presentation at the 2008 Gnomdex conference, which was held between August 21 and 23, 2008 in Seattle, WA, where he talks about what he did and how he did it to travel around the world not only once or twice, but three times. Once on his own expense and twice on somebody else's.

Gnomedex is by the way the tech- or geek-conference organized by Chris Pirillo, who is also notoriously known for his online video stuff and live chat.

What is odd to me now is the fact that just when I decided to write this post about Matt, his web site went offline. WhereTheHellIsMatt.com does not resolve at all. There is a cached version of the site in Google, with a date of either November 8 or 9, so the site was up about a week ago. I hope that this down-time is only a temporary glitch. However, if I would be Matt, I would have a word with the hosting company (unless that company happens to be the sponsor for his web site hosting hehe)

I put up the link to his web site anyway, hoping that it will be up very soon.

Other Links

• Matthew Hardings Public Picasa Albums
• Matt's Typepad Blog
• MattHarding2718, his YouTube Channel 

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

A New Star Trek Experience

I wrote in September about the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas and that it was shut down as of September 1.

I also shot a short video showing the closed Experience, which I uploaded to YouTube.

A YouTube user who watched my video about the closed Star Trek Experience at the Hilton Las Vegas, left a comment about a planned new Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas and also sent me a link to the article on the web site of inBusiness Las Vegas, where he got the information from. Quote from that article:

The Star Trek Experience will have five components and most elements could be completed next year, when a new Star Trek movie is scheduled for release. Just as the new movie will have some familiar characters in some unfamiliar roles, the Star Trek Experience will be similar but different from its predecessor and includes significant upgrades.

There will be a food and beverage component, which will include a restaurant and lounge and a retail area with merchandise from all incarnations of the Star Trek concept. Star Trek fans are incredibly loyal and if the latest movie sparks yet another generation of supporters, the retail element could be very successful.

A museum that explores the entire history of Star Trek is also planned.

There will also be a 4-D movie theater designed to be an interactive experience with high-tech seats that will stimulate the senses.

"They will recreate sights, sounds and smells and take your body traveling through space," Joshi said.

The final element will be simulators - rides that are two levels high in Neonopolis' center court.

I asked in a comment at my YouTube video and heard the news (before I had the link to the article): "Will it be the same thing? I wouldn't think so, since the Hilton hotel itself was part of the story and effects in the old rides".  The article at inBusiness LV seems to validate my statement.

I wonder what they mean with "significant upgrades" compared to the previous Experience at the Hilton.

When they "upgraded" the Experience in 2004 by adding the "Borg Invasion 4D" ride, I didn't think that this was much of an upgrade either. I still liked the "old" ride, the "Klingon Encounter", much more than the new one. The use of modern technology does not mean that it will be a better ride. There are many other, more important factors that make a ride a good ride (or bad), which have little or nothing to do with technology.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with and how it will be. I am a bit of a sceptic, but hope for the best. Time will tell eventually.

I also never heard of the "Neonopolis Center" project before, until I read the article. It's an 235,000 square feet Las Vegas downtown entertainment center that was opened on May 3, 2002 and cost $100 Million to build. I assume that it is part of the project of the downtown LV casinos to make that part of the city interesting and attracting for tourists again, after the were loosing more and more visitors to the Las Vegas Strip, which became the new "Center" of the city. The "Freemont Street Experience" is the best known example of those efforts.

It says in the article at inBusiness LV that the project manager said that funding of this new project is secured and also that the rights were acquired from CBS Pictures, who owns the legal property of the Star Trek franchise.

However, its still a risky project and an expensive one as well. Star Trek fans might be extremely loyal, but they are also extremely unforgiving. Keep that in mind.. those are the words coming out of the mouth of a Star Trek fan, me.

Last but not least information about the upcoming featured film "Star Trek XI", which will be released in 2009.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Star Trek: how 20 minutes of early footage engaged my warp drive
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• IMDB Entry for Star Trek XI

Outlook Express Email Folder Recovery without Losing Existing Hierarchy

It happened to me a few days ago that Outlook Express suddenly did not show a bunch of email folders anymore. I freaked out at first, because I thought that the emails were lost, but I found out that this was not the case.

The emails were still there, but the folder file, which is created for each and every email folder in Outlook Express was simply missing in the OE folder hierarchy. Phew! I thought, that should be fixed in no-time at all. Well, I learned that I was mistaken, because there is no way to tell Outlook Express, that it has a file for an email folder sitting in its directory together with the other email folder files and that it would be great to simply add that to its folder index. I thought that this cannot be. And found something promising after a few searches at Google.

This Microsoft Knowledge Base article describes the scenario for how to recover email folders in Outlook Express, if there are any missing in the OE folder index. Great! But wait, there is a catch. If you follow the (incomplete by the way) instructions, you end up with all folders back in Outlook Express, alright, but without the existing folder hierarchy. Every email folder is now in the root, no sub-folders anymore.

Well, I have over 1,000 folders that are organized in a complex hierarchy that can go 4-5 levels deep. I only miss a few folders. Why should I screw up the hierarchy of all the hundreds existing folders in order to get those few folders back into OE. That does not make sense to me, but I wasn't able to find anything near a solution for this extended version of the not so uncommon issue.

If you only have a few folders and don't mind to restructure all of them again, then you do not have to read much further. Only a few more paragraphs, because it contains some useful information that are missing in the Microsoft KB article, in particular the specification where exactly Outlook Express stored the email folders on your hard disk. It also has some other catches. Let me quote a MVP from Microsoft regarding what you will have to do, after you deleted the folder.dbx file and have Outlook Express recreate it for you:

• Re-create your mail folder hierarchy by dragging folders into place in the Folder list. Note that any folder you have created to group sub-folders but that does not itself contain messages will not appear in the Folder list and so must be created again.
• Re-download the list of newsgroups from each news account.
• Reset your subscribed newsgroups and download messages again.
• Reset synchronization options on IMAP and newsgroup folders.
• Edit any message rule that moves or copies messages to folders other than the Inbox (Note by Carsten: since none of the old folders are there anymore, even if you recreate them with the same name)

Not nice, Not good .. okay, whining does not help us with our existing problem though.

Outlook Express files are stored by default at
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

I also heard that it could be stored at:
C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook Express\{GUID}

I have never encountered the second scenario so I decided to ignore it for my solution. The folder stated first is usually hidden from the user. The <USER> must be replaced with your user name, which could also include the domain or workgroup name of your account, such as USER.DOMAIN, but you should be able to figure that out, if you look at the sub directories of the C:\Documents and Settings folder. The {GUID} part is not obvious at all and tricky to determine, if more than one Outlook Express Identity was created for the same Windows user. But I have some tool to help you with this stuff.

The Steps

1. To make sure that you can see the folders  in general, change some of your Folder display options. To do this, go in Windows Explorer to "Tools\Folder Options" and select the "View" tab (see image).

Within the top 10 options should be a checkbox for "Display the contents of System Folders", which you have to enable and a group called "Hidden files and folders" with the two options "Do not show hidden files and folders" and "Show hidden files and folders" to choose from. Make sure that the second option "Show hidden files and folders" is selected.

2. I wrote a little Visual Basic script that you can download here, which is called "oeidentity.vbs" (right-click and select "save as", change file extension from ".txt" to ".vbs"). You should be able to execute it by double-clicking it from within Windows Explorer after you downloaded it. It requires that the last Outlook Express Identity that was opened by the currently logged-in user was the Identity with the missing folders. If you don't know what I am talking about, because you do not have multiple Identities to switch in between and therefor have no clue what I am referring to, just ignore this part and just execute the script.

The code is pretty simple

Dim WshShell, IdentityName, IdentityGUID 
Dim sDirLookup, sDirLoc, sMsg 

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

IdentityName = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\Identities\Last Username")
IdentityGUID = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\Identities\Last User ID")

sDirLookup = "HKCU\Identities\" & IdentityGUID &_
   "\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Store Root"
sDirLoc = WshShell.RegRead(sDirLookup)

Set WshShell  = Nothing

sMsg = "The Last Used Identity for this user was the following" & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "Name: " & IdentityName & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "ID: " & IdentityGUID & vbcrlf & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "The Storage Location for this Identity is" & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & sDirLoc 

Wscript.echo sMsg 

WScript.Quit

3. Now you know where your Outlook Express files are. Now it is also a good time to check if the missing folders are really just missing in the OE folder index or were actually deleted from your hard drive. If that is the case, then you have to do an additional step, which is the recovery of those deleted folder files.

3.1 There are various tools out there, but the one that I use in cases like that is called Get Data Back NTFS by Runtime Software. They also have a version for FAT partitions, in case that your hard drive is using that instead of NTFS (which is the recommended default for Windows XP). I suggest getting the bundle that also includes the DiskExplorer for NTFS (or FAT respectively), especially if you only want to recover individual files and are not sure what the name of those files are.

3.2 Okay assuming now that there are files for the folders that you are missing in the Outlook Express folder tree. You can tell, which file belongs to the missing folder, by simply looking for files that are called "Missing Folder Name.dbx" or similar, e.g. "Missing Folder Name (1).dbx" etc.

If a whole tree or trees are missing, things are a bit more complication as they were in my case. I cannot tell out of my head what all the sub folders were of the folders that were gone missing. So I had to come up with a way to determine, which of the files/folders are actually missing in the folder hierarchy.

4. To do that, I created a folder called "C:\OEBackup" and below that a sub folder called "Files". I then copied all files from the Outlook Express folder to this new folder at "C:\OEBackup\Files". I then created two additional sub folders under C:\OEBackup, one called "FoldersOld" and one called "FoldersNew", making it three sub folders altogether.

5. As I mentioned, Outlook Express saves the Folder Hierarchy in a file called "Folders.DBX" and imports all files/folders to rebuild the index, if this file is missing. But we still need the old and incomplete Folders.dbx for something, so MOVE it from the Outlook Express folder to C:\OEBackup\FoldersOld instead of just deleting it.

6. Before you start Outlook Express again to have it rebuild the index, one more thing. You do not want OE to check for any new emails to download while we are working on cleaning up this mess. That is not as easy to do as it sounds, if you have enabled that Outlook Express should check for new messages during program start.

Let us disable that and also the checks after X minutes that you probably also configured, but without starting Outlook Express itself. You have to change two settings in a file called the Windows Registry.

To do that, click on "Start" in the start menu and select "Run". Type into the box there "Regedit" and press enter.

Navigate to the following location within the registry and change the mentioned entries as specified.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\YOURIDENTIY\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Mail]

Entry: "Check Mail on Startup"


Change value from 1 to 0

and to avoid checks later also change the following (same "directory" in the registry)

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\YOURIDENTIY\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Mail]

Entry: "Poll For Mail"


Change existing (hexadecimal)* value to: ffffffff 

*It contains the interval for OE to check for new messages, that is configured under Tools\Options, General Tab, Checkbox: "[ ]Check for new messages every [ number ] minute(s)" The value stored in the registry is actually the hexadecimal representation of the specified minutes in milliseconds. A 5 minutes interval for example would be 300,000 milliseconds, or in hex 0x000493e0

Here is what the same change would be in Outlook Express, if you would do it there. Click the image to the left to enlarge.

The image above shows how you do the same change via the Windows Registry, without starting Outlook Express and risking that you are not fast enough and new messages could be downloaded. If you cannot read it, click on it for an enlarged version of the same image.

7. Now you can start Outlook Express again and have it rebuild the folders.dbx and with it your email folders list, without hierarchy.

8. Remember the backup that you created under c:\OEBackup\files, which also should contain the old and incomplete folders.dbx? Now you need it, because you have to import it into Outlook Express now.

Yes, It will create tons of duplicates, but that cannot be avoided for the step that comes. However, you still keep that backup, because we will need it again to get rid of those duplications.

In order to import the folders and emails from the backup, select from within Outlook Express at the top menu "Files" and then "Import".

A wizard pops up where you have to select the email program to import from. Select "Microsoft Outlook Express 6" and press "Next".

In the next screen select "Import mail from an OE6 store directory" and press "OK"

Browse for the Backup folder at C:\OEBackup\files in the screen where you have to specify the "Location of Messages" and then press the "Next" button.

The following screen lets you select folders. Simply choose "All Folders" and press "Next". Outlook Express will now import the folders and messages from your Backup. You might noticed that it shows in the folder selection your old tree. That is the fact that I am relying on. OE only imports the folders that it knows about from the old folders.dbx and thus, does not import the folders that are physically there, but not in the index.

To see the steps that I just described with your own eyes, click on the screen shot thumb image on the top-left.

9. When the import is finished, close Outlook Express and download this script file called oecheck.vbs (right-click and select "save as", change file extension from ".txt" to ".vbs"). You don't have to modify the script, if you saved the backup at C:\OEBackup\files like I told you to do and if you did not opened another Outlook Express identity before you got to this step of the process. It's highly unlikely, but I just wanted to make sure. If not, open the script in Notepad and change the settings at the beginning of the script manually.

The script creates a file called "oefldcompresults.txt" in the same directory where you saved and executed the script itself. It contains a list with all the .DBX files that are missing in your old backup copy of Outlook Express.

10. Move the folders.dbx from the OE directory to the C:\OEBackup\FoldersNew directory and then delete the rest of the files in the directory.

11. Now I want you to delete everything in the default Outlook Express directory. Yes, you heard right. Do not delete the Backup though.

12. Now take the list of files listed in oefldcompresults.txt and copy or move them back to the now empty Outlook Directory (its up to you now, if you want to move of copy the files, depending on how safe or how quick you want to be) . If you want to be safe, actually move the files to a new and separate directory first and then copy them back to the Outlook Express directory. Just do it. It will make sense to you within the next 2 steps, I promise.

13. When you are done, make sure that the folders.dbx was not one of those files. It shouldn't, but double checking does not hurt. Start Outlook Express again and it should create a new folders index, just for the folders/files that were missing in the first place.

14. Close Outlook Express again. Move or copy all files from the Outlook Express directory that you copied/moved just before, but now including a new folders.dbx file to C:\OEBackup and the files that are not in oefldcompresults.txt, including your old folders.dbx back to the Outlook Express directory

So the Outlook Express folder should now only have the .DBX files for the folders that it actually has in the old and incomplete folders index and the ones it does not, should be all in the directory C:\OEBackup with their own folders.dbx definition.

15. Start Outlook Express again and perform the same import steps as you already did once, with the only difference that the Location of the Messages would be "C:\OEBackup" rather than "C:\OEBackup\Files". You should notice in the "Select Folders" screen that it only shows the folders that you were missing without a hierarchy though.

16. Once the import is done, you should have your old and existing folders still there, structured and in hierarchies and only the folders that were missing added at the root level without a hierarchy. Those you have to rearrange by hand though, because that hierarchy was already gone for good without hope for recovery.

Another Alternative (If available)

The only alternative option that you have is using an old backup version of the folders.dbx file from your regular data and system backups that you hopefully do  from time to time. As long as that version does not miss any folders that you created after the backup, you should be fine, if you use it. But if not, sorry, you have to do the painful steps that I outlined in this post.

After thoughts

There is a commercial OE API that has nice features and might provide the basis for a better solution than mine. If you know or have a better solution, please share it in the comments section with me and other readers. I'd appreciate it.

Cheers and I hope that this post was helpful to another poor soul like me out there that ran into the same issue.

Outlook Express Tools and Resources

Here is also a list with other Outlook Express tools and resources that might be useful to you.

• OutlookExpressExtraction.zip (800KB) and the Help File (300K) is an useful and free command-line based tool by Ian Macallan (1) that extracts email + their attachments from Outlook Express .DBF files to .NWS format. The tool is fast and capable of processing vast amounts of emails (I know that, because I tried it myself :))
• OEHelp.com - Offers several Outlook Express and Windows Mail tools, such as DBXtract, DBXpress, OEX, OE Toolbar and OEBackup. Some of them are free, but most are available for a low fee ($9-$30).
• Outlook Express Tools at Mailhilfe.de - Has over 50 tools for Outlook Express listed. The listing is German, but the tools are mostly English
• Inside Outlook Express at InsideOE.com By Tom Koch, a Microsoft MVP provides tons of useful insights into the inner workings of Outlook Express and tips and solutions for all kinds of problems aand tweaks related to the software.
• ScanDBX.com - commercial tool for about $40 that can detect and repair various Outlook Express Problems, including corrupt .DBX mail files.

Cheers

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Beatles - All Together Now DVD Release Postponed

Updated! See update at the end of the post!

What a bummer... A couple days ago, I checked out the official Beatles web site and noticed the announcement of full length featured documentary DVD about the Cirque du Soleil show "The Beatles - Love". Great! Okay, there is already one "Imagine: The Beatles in Love", a BBC documentary from 2006, but the more the merrier. I don't expect them to recycle the already published content for the new DVD.

It looks like they are going to re-use some material, but also include plenty of new one. You can watch the short and the long trailer for the DVD at my Cirque du Soleil related YouTube account.

Okay, so I went off and pre-ordered the DVD with a planned release date of October 20, 2008 at BestBuy.com, the exclusive retailer who is to offer the DVD for sale on the Internet.

Today I got an email from the BestBuy.com customer service that states that the delivery date will be postponed until April 21, 2009. What??? That is a freaking 6 months delay of the release.

They must be kidding, right? The documentary itself is supposed to be 84 minutes long, plus 3 additional mini documentaries with a running time of about 40 minutes total. It's not god damn Lord of the Rings movie where they need a year for the post production. In 6 months they could re-do the whole documentary DVD entirely from scratch. 

I couldn't believe the email and went on to the BestBuy.com web site to check my order status.

And there it is again... April 21, 2009. Damn it!

I don't need to understand this BS, don't I? I guess we have to continue to live with the existing documentary from 2006 for a while longer now. I couldn't find an official press release or something like that, which explains the long time difference from the previous to the new release date ad why the original release date of October 20, 2008 cannot be met.

No news since the C&D letter by the Cirque and my blog post response. I wonder what there is cooking now too.

Well, until there is more to report, check out my Cirque du Soleil Primer article here at my blog and my Cirque du Soleil and Performing Arts related YouTube.com video channel.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Update October 14, 2008: I got contacted by Cirque du Soleil and told that Best Buy made an error. The documentary DVD is supposed to be shipped out on-time and will not be postponed until next year. I will know for sure in about one week. Let's see how that goes.

Update October 16, 2008: I received an email from BestBuy.com with a shipping confirmation and number (shipped via XMEX?!) . The provided tracking link does not work yet, but I expect that to change on Monday and the actual delivery also within the next week.

I received the DVD the week after my second update. The DVD is great and it does not use that much of the same content from the BBC documentary as I feared. Most of the content is completely original. If you are a Cirque du Soleil fan or Beatles fan, I highly recommend buying this DVD. You won't be disappointed. Promise!

Roy/SAC Homepage

Star Trek, The Experience is Gone!

You heard correctly, Star Trek - The Experience is gone ... where no Star Trek Experience has gone before ...  into oblivion. I just returned from Las Vegas today. 

I was at the Hilton Las Vegas yesterday and shocked to see that the Star Trek Experience is now closed, not for maintenance, updates, NO ... FOREVER!!! It is actually closed already since September 1, 2008. WTF?

Okay, I did the Experience already four times (or five, I am not 100% sure). I did it the first time in 2002 (or was it 2001?),  when there was only the Klingon Encounter and then several times more, after they expanded the Experience with the Borg Invasion (4D) ride in early 2004 (I always liked the old Klingon ride much more, but then I also liked only the Original Series and Next Generation and never got into DS9, Voyager or Enterprise).

What a loss! ... and probably only because some greedy bastards could not agree on how to share the profits.

The Experience wasn't cheap (about $25 until 2004 and $40 or so, after they launched the second ride. Okay a bit less than that, one or a few bucks, but that does not matter anymore), plus the revenue from the gift shop and the overpriced "Quarks" restaurant that served TGI Friday's kind of food for twice the price and half the quality. Not being profitable could not have been the reason for shutting it down after over 11 years of operation.

It's a shame and Gene Roddenberry, who passed away in 1991, did obviously some poor decisions regarding who and how the franchise that he created, will be managed after his death. What a blow and slap into the face of Star Trek fans worldwide. Gene would turn in his grave (bless his soul), if he'd know about this.

Backup URL to Video on YouTube

I bought some Star Trek stuff at the gift shop myself. A plush bear (star fleet commander), a small Tribble (from Star Trek, the original series) and a shirt with a Star Fleet Academy logo on it. Here are some pictures of it. The Tribble makes actually a sound, if you press it hehe. I don't know where you could buy this stuff now, because the gift store at the Hilton is gone like the rides, restaurant, bar and museum. The online store and web site StarTrekExp.com is also down now :(

I am glad that I "forced" a friend of mine, an American who grew up in Chile and worked at my former employer with me, to go to Vegas and do the Experience, before he went back with his wife and kids to live in Chile. He was/is a huge Star Trek fan and even wanted to do this Star Trek wedding (but the wife was not so thrilled about that and said no). I knew that he would regret it for the rest of his life, if he had not done it, so I forced him to his luck. Now it's gone and he wouldn't have a chance to do it anymore. I am sure that he will appreciate my persistence a few years ago even more now.

That's a lesson for anything in life. If you really want to do something, don't leave it an open item on your "to-do list" for too long, because of stupid excuses, just do it, or you might never get the chance to do it at all.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Kooza DVD and Cirque C&D Letter

This is my first post, using the Windows Live Writer application. It's a free tool by Microsoft to make blog posts, supporting various blogging platforms beyond Windows Live Spaces. It was able to determine the blog layout and I can now see right when I type this, how it will probably look on the site. Another important feature, which made me giving Live Writer a shot, is the nice image upload feature via FTP. If all goes well, images that I insert here into the editor should be transferred over to my web server and the post in Blogger should refer to the images web URL instead of the local file on my hard-drive. Lets see how it works out :).

They have a dedicated web site, an open SDK  and a gallery with already 97 plug-ins available for download and use with the new Writer tool. I was able to configure the Writer for this blog (using classic Blogger with FTP to push to my servers), with SearchEngineJournal.com (WordPress), but not with ReveNews.com. I think that the problem with ReveNews.com has not to do with the Writer, but the configuration of the ReveNews.com blog itself, which is also using WordPress, like SEJ, where it worked instantly.

Post Reason No. 1

Okay, but this is not the reason for my post. There are actually two much more significant reasons. Lets start with the first, which is much simpler and explained in no time, compared with reason number two.

I got today my 2 discs DVD set of the recording of the Cirque du Soleil show "Kooza". I ordered it on the weekend and paid $12 or so for express shipping. The shipping was really express, which justifies the high shipping charge. The DVD itself cost $29.00. It seems to be expensive, but you actually get a lot of stuff for your bucks, so I'd say that the price is fair. You can only buy it via the Cirque Boutique online as far as I can tell.

I stumbled across the DVD by accident. I didn't see any promotion for it (including nothing on the Cirque web site itself) or anything like that. I noticed it when I compared the DVD offers in the Cirque Boutique for shoppers from the United States to the ones for shoppers from India. Why I did that will be explained in reason two a bit later. Well, that also means that I don't know when the DVD was actually released, because I didn't see any preview, announcement or advertisement for it. It cannot be for long be available though, because it is not available via Amazon.com yet. Assuming that the delay for appearing in Amazon.com is the same as it was for the Kooza soundtrack, then it must have been released sometimes last week.

What do you get for your money?

I mentioned already that you get a lot for your money. DVD 1 contains only the main show, which is about 2 hours in length. Audio is available in Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. The show was filmed with 8 cameras during its run in Toronto Canada. The second DVD contains the entire 47 minutes long documentary "A Thrilling Ride Through Kooza", which was/is sold separately for several months already. This documentary itself cost already $19.00!

Also included are an about 11 minutes long documentary about the Wheel of Death act, some promotional advertisements for other Cirque products and the DVD credits. Altogether over 3 hours of content in high definition and superb sound quality. Subtitles are also available in multiple languages, including Spanish and French. The DVDs come in a custom made box cover, which did not fit in its entirely on my scanner. But you will get the idea, I hope :).

Post Reason No. 2

Now it is getting serious, so hold on tight and bear with me please :).

If you noticed and wondered, why many of my past blog posts were changed and include this ugly button where there used to be videos embedded, I will now explain why that I did it and you will hopefully understand and forgive me.

I received a bit over one week ago a Cease and Desist letter by Cirque du Soleil. I am not kidding here, this is real, I swear. You can see the actual letterin PDF format here. See for yourself.

It was written politely. They obviously don't like that I promote their business and help them to make more revenue and more profits (I am still not kidding).  Before I responded to them, I did contact the Social Media Manager for Cirque du Soleil, Jessica Berlin, who is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had contact with Jessica in the past, first through my old YouTube.com account and then through my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account. Jessica manages the CirqueLasVegas account on YouTube and we bumped into each other, because she was literally spamming many of my Cirque du Soleil related videos (no joke). She knew what I was doing, appreciated it, and even gave comments and made suggestions.

So I forwarded the email from her colleagues to Jessica, assuming that there was an error made or some rookie at the Montreal office does not know anything about social media and what is going on the Internet these days.

My email to her looked like this quote (excerpt only):

Could you please explain to your colleagues what social media is and that they fight an up-hill battle, if they try to prevent people from taking their brand and run with it by force?

I do it publicly as a fan and do tons of advertising and more for free and honest, It's a promotion that you cannot buy for any money in the world. I answer questions of people and cannot remember getting any negative feedback ever. Since I am a fan and not a hater of the Cirque, I try to present the Cirque in its best light possible. I never claimed to work on behalf of the Cirque. I am also open to comments and suggestions, like the one you did for the "Believe" video, where you thought that I was not clear enough expressing that this is not an official Cirque du Soleil released video. If you try to force, regulate and control what people think and interpret by using threats and citing inadequate and outdated laws, two things will happen.

1. you lose support and might even turn your best friends into your worst foes
2. people will not stop doing what they do (the genie is out of the bottle), they will only close all communication channels and use the protection of anonymity, removing the option for you to guide and support and to maintain at least some control over the message that is send out to people.

What is the point in doing that? It does not make sense at all, personally and also from the business point of view.

I understand that there are some ethical limits what some other people do not. I don't publish full DVD or CD rips of Cirque du Soleil shows for example, although I still believe that this does not hurt you guys that much really, unless the CD/DVD business became bigger than show ticket sales. I stated at my blog and YouTube channel, that the best recording of a show, Multi-Angle, High Definition (HD), 5.1 Surround Sound etc. is no substitute for watching a show live. It's like watching a roller-coaster ride on TV... it gives you a glimpse, but you have to experience it yourself to get the full package.

You are allowed to forward this and also any previous email communication to other folks at Cirque du Soleil, including the two ladies below. I hereby give you officially the permission to do so.

I have 10 days to respond to the notice. I will wait with my response until Wednesday and hope to hear back from you before then. It gives you over two working days to discuss this subject with your colleagues internally and to make a decision.

I wrote in March an Article titled "Social Media Guide for Big Brand Businesses" for Search Engine Journal, which was well received. I suggest to you and your colleagues to read it.

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-guide-for-big-brand-corporate-businesses/6604/

I got a response from Jessica a few days later (I got the C&D letter on a Friday, just to mention it). She wrote:

Thank you for forwarding this.  I think this has come about primarily because of the DVD content that is hosted on your sites.  I understand your frustrations with this but Cirque has always upheld a very firm policy that no more than three minutes of content is able to be used without having to pay for rights to the footage.  Usually we have media (both traditional and 2.0) sign a release form for the use of any footage.  Social media is still relatively new territory for us but we still need to enforce our brand standards in all mediums.

I know you are a huge fan and we truly appreciate your help in promoting the shows.  In order to be able to continue working together, I hope you will respect the guidelines.

So I changed the posts on my blog and responded to the original email with the C&D letter attached to it, before the 10 days time-limit was up:

Sorry for the delayed response, but I was busy. Well, the set 10 days are not over yet, so I am still acting within the accepted limits.

There are no possibly infringing Cirque du Soleil videos hosted or embedded at RoySAC.com or any other web sites that I operate anymore, as you requested.

What remains is material provided by partners with whom I am affiliated with, including Amazon.com and MGM or meet the criteria of fair use within the acceptable limits of news reporting and/or expression of my personal opinion, which is still perfectly legal in this country.Let me know, if you have questions or refute my claims for the remaining content on my web sites.

I followed the demands made in the C&D by the letter, not a bit more and, I honestly believe, no less either.

This makes things look a little bit odd now, because the videos are still there and not removed from the planet earth of course. I did this on purpose, to make a point.

I would make a bet that the three minutes length limitation, specified by their internal policies, is based on the use for traditional media, including Television but also high definition ads on DVDs, including their own DVDs. Signing a release form applies also to traditional media (which includes large Web 2.0 publishers), but not to social media (video sharing).

The Cirque would have to hire a lot more staff and new servers (web and/or email servers), if they want every guy on the planet who decides to make a fan video from various sources sign a release form (which they must have available in at least a few hundred of the close to 7,000 living languages in the world today, because not everybody who has a computer and Internet access is necessarily also fluent in English or French.

The 3 minutes time limit probably has also to do with the standards in the TV and Movie industry. Ad blocks on TV are often sold with a  30 seconds length. A 1 minutes Ad would take up 2 blocks. Some even use 20 seconds blocks, which would require the purchase of 3 blocks for a 1 minute Ad. Movie trailers for the theatres, TV, online movie sites (e.g. IMDB.com) or to be included on other DVD movies are usually between 20 seconds to 2:30 minutes long, max 3 minutes (oh.. surprise!). Anyway, I can only say "Leave the old rules with the old habits and get used to new rules (and maybe also new habits)"

Asking a regular guy and fan to only make videos that are no longer than 3 minutes is not only ridicules, but also stupid and to some extend even discriminating. Jessica also seems to be new to all of this. Her well meant, but poorly exercised promotional campaign for the announcement video of the new Cirque show in Vegas starring the magician "Criss Angel" (the spam that I mentioned earlier), seems to confirm my personal assumption.

I can only recommend to read my original email once more. This should help with the missing understanding a little bit. I am also open to talks, since I seem to know a little bit more about this subject then they do. Hey, I don't even charge them money for it.

Now to the complained regarding the use of DVD content for some of my videos.

The Stuff is already there, not because of me!

First, ALL Cirque du Soleil DVDs are available for free download in pirated form all over the Internet. Pick your poison, Torrents, Usenet, FTP servers or sliced up into <10 minutes pieces on YouTube. Non of those were my doing. I got tons of requests to publish extensive DVD material, which I refused politely, referring to online stores where those DVDs can be purchased for personal use. This includes Cirque Documentaries.

One Exception, for Good Reasons

There was one exception. I made one of the documentaries available non-public to a fan in India, who cannot afford to travel to Las Vegas to see the show in Person, Due to the fact that it is a resident show, no show recording of the show is available or will be available any day soon (the show "Mystère" runs for over 15 years and there is still no recording of it). The documentary "Flow" (about the Cirque show "O") is only available through the Cirque Boutique online shop. Before you are able to show the store is it necessary to specify where the items will be shipped to. If you select USA, everything is fine and pretty much the entire product catalog is accessible. Different story, if you specify India as shipping location. The number of products available  shrinks significantly. The DVD section is almost empty. Non of the documentary DVDs is available for purchase.

So the there is no legal way for somebody from India to get access to this content. I assume that the restriction for India has nothing to do with the Cirque using copyright laws to control distribution in a bad way, but logistical issues and/or the risk of and fear for credit card fraud, which is rampart in Asia and requires some sophistication to reduce the risk to an acceptable limit.

I felt sorry and uploaded the video to Google Video and sent the non-public URL to this guy in a personal email. The videos do not appear in any listings or search results on any web site though. Here are screen shots of the site, one with the DVD offerings, if you specify United States as delivery destination and another, if you set the destination to India (btw. when I made those screen shots, is when I noticed the Kooza DVD and bought it right then and there hehe).

Show Content from Documentaries

Yes, I admit that I used show content from documentaries, including the ones that are available on DVD. However, I only did it for shows, where there is no recording on DVD available (yet). I did not publish the documentary parts though, which always made up the larger part of the documentaries.

If you are a fan and live half way around the globe from the venue where a resident show is being performed, chances could be slim to zero that the person would be able to ever make it to that show in person and in his or hers lifetime.

Know your Customers and Don't Use Cheap Methods to make a Quick and Dirty Buck!

If the person is interested in the shows but not the behind the scenes stuff, trying to sell to him a documentary DVD as a quick fix is not only low, but unethical as well. There are folks (like me), who value the background info of a show, about the creation, the artists and the surroundings. Fine, for them is the DVD and I didn't publish anything that would deter any of those potential customers from buying the documentary DVDs, on the contrary actually. I mentioned in some of the videos that it contains as source material images from a documentary DVD.

I was contacted who were unaware of the existence of such DVDs and who asked me specific questions about them. Often of the nature "which one to buy", because they only had enough money for one DVD and not all of them, so they wanted to pick the best they possibly could.

The folks interested in just the shows got a nice freebie in less than High Definition quality. They wouldn't buy the DVDs for the documentaries sake of them, are unable to buy a DVD recording of the show and sometimes unable to make it to a show in person.

However, some are able to make it and appreciate the video footage to help them with their decision about, for which of the soon to be SIX Cirque du Soleil shows (plus ONE additional Cirque like show, "Le Rêve" by former Cirque director Franco Dragonè, now on his own, plating at the Wynn Las Vegas), they should get tickets for when they are visiting Las Vegas.

Many of the viewers of the videos are actually folks who already got tickets are are excited about seeing a show live and folks who just saw one the shows and are still thrilled and excited to let everybody else know about their excitement via a comment a respective video of that show in YouTube. I am not kidding, check out the comments of the Cirque Videos on YouTube yourself, if you do not believe what I am telling you.

Summary, I do not cut into the Cirque's business, I am actually supporting and promoting it, helping them to sell more show tickets and to sell DVDs to the right customers for the right reasons. I even state at the user home page of my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account the following:

REMEMBER! A VIDEO (REGARDLESS OF ITS QUALITY) IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A LIVE EXPERIENCE OF THE PERFORMING CIRCUS ARTS!

I did not make that up, I really mean it! The Cirque should send me a check instead of a cease and desist letter! Others would probably agree with me on this one. I try to portrait the Cirque from his best side in my videos and try to be as true to the brand as I can. At the same time I am making as clear as possible that I created (edited) the video and do not work for the Cirque. This is important because of content that I use some times, where the Cirque does not own any copyright themselves, yes, content that includes live performances by the Cirque itself (I am not kidding again and won't start with it at the end :) ).

What I Do NOT Do!

I do not publish any video recordings where artists didn't do their act successfully and fell and might got injured beyond their own pride. I am sure that not everybody is a fan of the Cirque, competitors for example. They can produce stuff as well and appear in search results for "Cirque du Soleil" or any of their show names on search engines and other web sites, like YouTube. I am sure that the Cirque would prefer if that content would be about the Cirque and not the competitors offerings and certainly not content that makes the Cirque look bad, stupid, unprofessional or unable to do their job right.

Conclusion and Wrap Up

I will send the link to this post to the folks at Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, Canada and also to Jessica in Las Vegas and hope that they will retract their C&D letter and do what I already suggested in my first email (to Jessica only, now published also publicly here at my blog). I will be in Vegas in a few days and hope to get the chance to talk with Jessica of Cirque du Soleil in person. I hope that she will appreciate all my free tips and advice that I provided and starts getting a real grip on this whole social media thing, where she was made a marketing manager for. I won't give up on the Cirque that easily. And if their is "reasoning" then there will be a solution that will work for everybody involved and can be used by the marketing folks at the Cirque for other instances like this one, where the person on the other side does not happen to be a marketer with experience in the social media space and is also a blogger (a lucky coincidence for the Cirque, I'd like to believe).

I think this post makes the top 5 list of the longest posts written for this blog. I didn't check and will stop here to avoid to be able to be sure that this must be the longest post of them all hehe.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

p.s. One last thing. Did you notice the new buttons below the post to enter a comment? How do you like it? I think that it is more prominent than the old simple text links.

I have not found a way to add Blogger tags to a post yet, but there might be a plug-in. That is the only issue that I encountered with the Windows Live Writer so far. There is room for hope and happiness here :).

Copyleft vs Public Domain

When I released my artwork on July 6, 2006 into the public domain, I assumed that this automatically implies that copies and derivations of it can also not be copyrighted. I just learned recently that this is not the case.

Since this was not intended by my original declaration, I did modify my declaration and the disclaimer in all detail pages of my artwork that became property of the general public. I am not a lawyer, so I assume that this refinement of my declaration will be okay. I also assume that this updated declaration cannot apply to events that happened between July 6, 2006 and today, August 24, 2008.

With this change did also the logo change. Instead of the strikethrough "c" logo is not the flipped "c" logo displayed with the license. What now follows is the old and new disclaimer to illustrate what changed.

Old Disclaimer


This piece of Art has been released into the public domain.
You are free to use it for your purposes free of charge. See Disclaimer below.

This image has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, Roy/SAC aka Carsten Cumbrowski. This applies worldwide. In some countries this is not legally possible; if so: Roy/SAC aka Carsten Cumbrowski grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

Updated/New Disclaimer


This piece of Art has been released into the public domain under
the Free Art Licence (FAL) 1.3 (Copyleft Attitude). See Disclaimer below.

This artwork was released under the Free Art Licence (FAL) 1.3 (Copyleft Attitude) This image is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship. You are free to use, copy, distribute and modify it as long as long as your copies and derivations are redistributed under the FAL (or any other Copyleft) license as well.

Resources

• Copyleft (Wikipedia)
• Public Domain(Wikipedia)
• Copyright(Wikipedia)
• Free Art Licence (FAL) 1.3 @ ArtLibre.org
• Copyright, Copyleft and the Creative Anti-Commons by Anna Nimus
• What is Copyleft? (Gnu.org)

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Mount Rushmore Square

I created a short 12+ minutes long video about the little known Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills Mountains of South Dakota.

I edited together the 3 minutes intro part of it, which is then followed by an about 10 minutes long mini documentary about the project.

You can download the video in .AVI format and 640x480 pixels resolution (259 MB) free from my Mediafire.com account.



Backup link to video at Google Video



The yet unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving is located less than 30 minutes from the famous Mount Rushmore Presidential Memorial where the heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln were carved into the mountain rock for the eternity.

The Crazy Horse mountain carving dwarfs the impressive Mt.Rushmore one in size and scale.

Also the time to create it is an eternity compared to the Mt.Rushmore project. The sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski started working on it on June 3, 1948 and it is still far from being finished today.

In contradiction to the the better known and federal funded Mt.Rushmore project is the Crazy Horse project entirely funded by the people who donate time, resources and money and by the admission to the visitor center and North American Indian Museum, which is located at the mountain base.

The Admission is either $10 per person (children under 6 free) or $27 per car load, whichever is better for you, for visitors with a car or $5 per person on foot, bicycle or motorcycle.

The museum is an attraction in its own rights already and thanks to that did admission and funding increase and with it the amount of progress that is being made at the mountain.

There is also an university and even an airport planned for all Native Americans of North America.

To put its size in perspective... The entire carving of Mt.Rushmore fits into the head of Crazy Horse, which is only one segment of the whole sculptor, which will also include part of Crazy Horses' upper body, his arms and the head of his horse.

It will be taller than the Washington monument in Washington DC. The stretched out arm will be as long as a football field and enough room for 4,000 people to stand on it.

The Black Hills are holy to the Lakota indians (which is part of the Sioux tribe) and I presume that they were not very happy about the White mens carvings that took place betwen 1927 and 1941.

It must have been like a slap into their face, while they were already on their knees, robbed of their land and cooped into small reservations with less than adequate supply of the basics things to live, but barely enough to survive, at least some of them.

There was nothing they could have done. The would not have been another Little Big Horn, but only another Wounded Knee or worse.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is their answer, slowly, but loud and clear. A slap back into the face of the white man to hurt his pride.

Bigger and better... something that the natives learned and adopted from the white man.

Thanks to the German author Karl May, who has never been to the United States and whos novels about the wild west were and are very popular in Germany, despite their historic inaccuracies, I did became interested into the story of the North American indian already when I was a young boy.

I probably learned more about them as American boys get taught about them in school, which is a shame all by itself. Well, I played "Cowboys and Indians" in Germany too, but in contradiction to when the American kids played this game, the Indians were the good guys and not the bad.

Mt.Rushmore was the most Eastern point of the road trip with my parents and my older sister in April 2004.

My sister knew more about stuff that was going on with the Native Americans today than I did. I didn't even know about the Crazy Horse project until we got to Keystone, South Dakota and my sister mentioned it.

Its location right around the corner made it a perfect secondary destination after Mt.Rushmore. Well, we spent about 30 minutes at Mt.Rushmore and then far over 2 hours at the Crazy Horse Memorial.. so the primary and secondary destination traded spaces while we were in the Black Hills Mountains.



As a good American you have Mt.Rushmore probably on the list of things to see at least once during your lifetime. If you get around to go to the Black Hills one day, make sure that you pay a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial and North American Indian Museum as well.

Pictures from my 2004 road-trip, which includes many pictures of Mt.Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial are available at my Google Picasa account. Here are the links to album 1 and album 2 about this trip.

I hope that you learned something interesting today, which hopefully also refreshed some old memories and put things into the right perspective again. Enjoy!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Democracy Still Works... Sometimes

An unusual short blog post, but there is not much more to say and no need to comment. If you have not been living on the moon during the past years, then you should have enough facts and information to know what you have to do.

The democratic system of this country might be flawed, but it is not entirely misfunctioning yet. Some parts still work. Make them count! ... and forget political colors this time, because it will not change the facts, regardless if the words come out of a "blue" or a "red mouth".

• See the Petition (PDF)
  
• See the Articles (PDF)
  
• Sign the Petition (Web Form)

Signing off...
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Berlin Wall and the Walls between Us

I created an extended version of my video about the Berlin Wall. I was born and grew up in Berlin and was 15 years old when the Wall finally fell on November 9th, 1989.

It's a personal subject, as for all Germans, especially Berliners who were affected by it the most. It will be soon 20 years, in one year and a few months, since this historic event occurred. It seems to me a long time ago, although I have many vivid memories of events from back then that seem to have happened only recently.

Maybe the global events of the past few years that are IMO disturbing and the parallel development of a global sense and community because of the Internet, which attempt to counter those negative events, brought some of my old memories back into my mind.

I never felt compelled before to talk or write about the historic events that happened in my hometown and which I was able (in part) to witness myself. I never owned or wanted to own a piece of the Wall, which is not unusual for a child of that city. I would say that you probably will have a hard time to find a Berliner who has a piece of the Wall, if you would start looking for one. I am pretty sure about that.

Something changed my attitude towards the subject and I am not 100% sure what and why. I got the feeling that telling the story and facts out of the mouth of somebody who knows personally a bit about it carries more weight and that telling the story became more and more important.

Remember history, because history tends to repeat itself! That is an old and true saying. It is especially true unfortunately, for things that should not be repeated at all, but people forgot about how bad it was over time and then allowed it to happen again.

Maybe it's the creation or fortification and militarization of new and existing Walls that were and are being erected between people at many places around the world. Walls are bad, they separate and isolate. They segment people who should not be segmented. Walls that separate families or big group of people are causing suffering, pain and even death.

Most Walls are unnecessary and should not be erected and it only happens, because people allow it to happen. If people would say "no more", those Walls would fall and crumble, just like the Berlin Wall did in 1989. The Berlin Wall example also shows that Walls can be torn down without violence or war.

Berlin Wall - Lessons Learned

• Backup Link to Video at Google Video
  
• Download the Video in .AVI format and 640x480 resolution (96 MB) free via Mediafire.com

My video is 13 minutes in length and contains material of over 30 video and audio sources and over 70 images and over 470 words of text annotation and caption. Feel free to share and distribute it.

The Story
A journalist from the West German newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau" asked the question, if the creation of a "Free East Berlin" means that a border will be erected at the Brandenburg Gate.

The East German Head of State "Walter Ulbricht" responded to this question with the following...

"I understand your question like that there are people in West Germany who wish that we mobilize the construction workers of the capital of the GDR to erect a wall, yes?

I am not aware of such intention, but that the construction workers of the capital are mainly busy with the construction of homes and that the available man power is used entirely ...

Nobody has the intention to build a wall."

That statement was a straight and convenient lie. During the night of 12-13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily constructed through the heart of Berlin.

Just two days before the barrier was erected 1,500 refugees had moved to West Berlin. Watchtowers punctuated the city limits and the temporary barbed-wire constructions were soon replaced with concrete. Within a year the Wall was seven and half miles long and fences stretched the remaining 91.7 miles around the city.

The wire fence and small brick wall segments were replaced in 1965 with a concrete wall. Between 1975 and 1980 the final and most sophisticated version of the concrete wall was built. It was made up of 12ft tall and 4ft wide reinforced concrete segments and the top lined with smooth pipe made of concrete to make it harder to climb.

Border Guards had the order to shoot anybody who attempted to cross the border and ignored the guards order to stop. Over 200 people who tried it died.

The wall fell on November, 9th 1989 without a single shot being fired or anybody getting injured. The first segments of the wall were demolished within the first few weeks.

Within a few years only very little remains of the Wall were left and had to be preserved be declaring them a historic monument that is not to be demolished.

The largest remaining segment of the Wall is the "East Side Gallery" near the Oberbaumbrücke along the Spree River. Another segment can be found north of Bernauer Straße. The third and last segment still in existence is located at the location of the former Gestapo head quarters between "Checkpoint Charlie" and "Potsdamer Platz".

The Berlin Wall separated physically and spiritually families, friends and fellow Germans for 28 years. It was causing hundreds of deaths and inflicted pain and suffering for millions of people of two generations.

Much good information can be found at a special section of the Berlin.de website. It's available in SIX different languages, German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Russian.

Over 100,000 people attempted to cross the border between East Germany and West Germany or East Berlin and West Berlin between 1949 and 1989.

About 1,000 people died. Not all deaths are the result of shootings, many drowned, suffocated or died as a result of hitting a land mine or triggering a spring gun, which were installed by the East German border guards to prevent border crossings.

The first victim of the Berlin Wall was Ida Siekmann on 22th August 1961 who died as a result of her injuries caused by her jump out of a Window at the Bernauer Strasse where buildings were in the middle of the border itself, one side belonging to East Berlin and the other to West Berlin.

The first victim shot at the Berlin Wall was Günter Litfin, who was killed on 24th August 1961. The last victim shot at the Wall was 20 years old Chris Gueffroy, who was killed on 5th February 1989.

The probably most gruesome death was the shooting of Peter Fechter on 17th August 1962, who was lying for one hour crying for help at the "Death Strip" near Checkpoint Charlie, in front of allied and West Berlin police, who could only watch helpless how Peter was bleeding to death before their eyes.

The border guards got trained to shoot at the legs to prevent the escapee from crossing the border, but hitting the legs with a fully automatic AK-47 over the distance of 200 yards or more is almost impossible to do. Because of the significant dispersion rate of the AK-47 was it easy to hit the head of a moving target, even if you aim at the feet.

Many more border guards did not shoot as they were ordered to do, shot after the escapee was already gone or aimed deliberately off the target to miss.

Some who did this were just mildly punished, however, some ended up in military prison for violation of article 262 of the East German criminal code of law (Paragraph 262 im Kapitel des DDR-Strafgesetzbuches über das Militärstrafrecht).

Border guards also had the order not to shot at Children, Women and on West Berlin Territory, also not at "three targets", a law that has its roots in Prussian military conduct. Guards usually were ordered to shout "Halt" (Stop) and fire a warning shot into the air first, before shooting at the target directly, but there exist files from the East German secret police, the Staatssicherheit or short STASI, which contradicted and violated those rules. A special unit of the Stasi operated covertly within the border guard units to prevent desertion of border guards. (Souce: Spiegel)

Also the fear of being shot at was not unreasonable. A number of East German border guards were shot at and killed by either the escapee itself or one of the helpers from West Germany or West Berlin.

The first border guard killed after the building of the Berlin Wall was Jörgen Schmidtchen, who was shot by two of his deserting comrades on 18th April 1962.

The exact number of deaths is unknown and varies depending on the source and over time. Here are some of the figures.

• State Attorney of Berlin (Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin): 86/169
  
• Inspector General of Berlin (Der Polizeipräsident von Berlin): at least 92
  
• Central registration office Salzgitter (Zentrale Erfassungsstelle Salzgitter): 114
  
• Central Auditing Agency for Government and Reunion delinquency (Zentrale Ermittlungsstelle für Regierungs- und Vereinigungskriminalität): 122
  
• Work Group "13th August" (Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13. August): over 200
  
• "Victims of the Wall" (Opfer der Mauer) by Werner Filmer and Heribert Schwan based on research at the Strausberg military archives: 216

The Museum at Checkpoint Charlie (Museum Haus am Checkpoint Charlie) published: 1,065 Border and Wall deaths

Breakdown with deaths before / after 13th August 1961

• Killed at the Berlin border (incl. Wall): 37 / 190
  
• Killed at German/German border: 247 / 237
  
• Killed/Died at Baltic Sea border: 17 / 164
  
• Killed border guards: 18 / 19
  
• Other deaths (incl. off East German ground): 59 / 77

People have names and each name has a story. Just mentioning figures is cold and without feelings. That should not be... here are the names of 136 identified and verified deaths (as of 1th August 2008) and the year when they died forcefully before their time.

Source: The joint research project of the "Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer" (Berlin Wall Memorial) and "Zentrums für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam" (Center for time based Historic Research Potsdam)

1961 Siekmann, Ida Litfin, Günter Hoff, Roland Urban, Rudolf Segler, Olga Lünser, Bernd Düllick, Udo Probst, Werner Lehmann, Lothar Wohlfahrt, Dieter Krüger, Ingo Feldhahn, Georg 1962 Schmiel, Dorit Jercha, Heinz Held, Philipp Schmidtchen, Jörgen (Border Guard) Böhme, Peter Brueske, Klaus Frank, Horst Göring, Peter (Border Guard) Haberlandt, Lutz Hannemann, Axel Glöde, Wolfgang Kelm, Erna Huhn, Reinhold (Border Guard) Noffke, Siegfried Fechter, Peter Wesa, Hans-Dieter Mundt, Ernst Seling, Günter (Border Guard) Walzer, Anton Plischke, Horst Reck, Ottfried Wiedenhöft, Günter 1963 Räwel, Hans Kutscher, Horst Kreitlow, Peter Muszynski, Wolf-Olaf Mädler, Peter Widera, Siegfried (Border Guard) Schröter, Klaus Schulz, Dietmar Berger, Dieter Schultz, Paul 1964 Hayn, Walter Philipp, Adolf Heike, Walter Gneiser, Rainer Wolscht, Norbert Trabant, Hildegard Mispelhorn, Wernhard Schultz, Egon (Border Guard) Wolf, Hans-Joachim Mehr, Joachim

1965 Unknown (N.N.) Buttkus, Christian Krzemien, Ulrich Hauptmann, Hans-Peter Döbler, Hermann Kratzel, Klaus Garten, Klaus Kittel, Walter Cyrius, Heinz Sokolowski, Heinz Kühn, Erich Schöneberger, Heinz 1966 Brandes, Dieter Block, Willi Schleusener, Lothar Hartmann, Jörg Marzahn, Willi Schulze, Eberhard Kollender, Michael Stretz, Paul Wroblewski, Eduard Schmidt, Heinz Senk, Andreas Kube, Karl-Heinz 1967 Sahmland, Max Willi Piesik, Franciszek 1968 Weckeiser, Elke Weckeiser, Dieter Mende, Herbert Lehmann, Bernd Krug, Siegfried Körner, Horst Henninger, Rolf (Border Guard) 1969 Lange, Johannes Kluge, Klaus-Jürgen Lis, Leo 1970 Wehhage, Eckhardt Wehhage, Christel Müller, Heinz Born, Willi Ehrlich, Friedhelm Thiem, Gerald Kliem, Helmut Friese, Christian-Peter 1971 Kabelitz, Rolf-Dieter Hoffmann, Wolfgang Kühl, Werner Beilig, Dieter 1972 Kullack, Horst Weylandt, Manfred Schulze, Klaus Katranci, Cengaver

1973 H., Holger Frommann, Volker Einsiedel, Horst Gertzki, Manfred Krobot, Siegfried 1974 Niering, Burkhard Sprenger, Johannes Savoca, Guiseppe 1975 Halli, Herbert Mert, Cetin Kiebler, Herbert Hennig, Lothar 1976 n/a 1977 Schwietzer, Dietmar Weise, Henri 1978 and 1979 n/a 1980 Steinhauer, Ulrich (Border Guard) Jirkowski, Marinetta 1981 Muschol, Dr. Johannes Starrost, Hans-Jürgen Taubmann, Thomas 1982 Freie, Lothar Fritz 1983 Proksch, Silvio 1984 Schmidt, Michael-Horst 1985 n/a 1986 Liebeke, Rainer Groß, René Mäder, Manfred Bittner, Michael 1987 Schmidt, Lutz 1988 n/a 1989 Diederichs, Ingolf Freudenberg, Winfried Gueffroy, Chris

There exist several memorials, which commemorate the victims of the Berlin Wall and German/German border. The most important ones are:

• Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Memorial "Berlin Wall") (includes 60 meters of border)
  Address/Location: Bernauer Straße / corner of Ackerstraße, 13355 Berlin-Mitte
  
• Gedenkstätte Günter Litfin (Memorial "Günther Litfin")
  Address/Location: Kieler Str. 2, 10115 Berlin-Mitte
  
• Parlament der Bäume (Memorial "Parliament of Trees")
  Address/Location: Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, Promenade Schiffbauerdamm
  
• Gedenkort Weiße Kreuze (Memorial "White Crosses") at the Reichstag
  Address/Location: Reichstagufer, west of the memorial at Scheidemannstraße, south of the Reichstag-building
  
• Gedenkort Peter Fechter (Memorial "Peter Fechter")
  Address/Location: Zimmerstraße

... no more to say... signing off
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Videos Working Again – YouTube Pain Update

Boy, what days. I was working on getting two years worth of videos up again and the links and embedded players on my site fixed.

Well, over 150 videos from over 2 years, not a task that you could consider to be a light and easy one.

To learn about the reasons why I had to do all the changes, check out my original post first and then my post at SearchEngineJournal.com, where I complained about YouTube and how they handle things.


I never heard a word back from them... nada, nothing, nichts, nitschevo. I am still very mad at them, especially, because they never even bothered to let me know why they did it. They simply blocked the account, all videos became inaccessible. No access to video comments, messages, subscribers, nothing.

I found out that I can access my play lists, if I know the URL. I can only access videos in those lists that are not from my account though. I also found something in the YouTube "account" section of my other YouTube accounts that I have not seen before. It is a page called "Account Warnings" where it says for my other accounts: "Your account is in good standing."

I wonder if there was anything different in my primary YouTube account. I cannot recall that I ever received a notice about any messages or notes that would be considered "Account Warnings". I am pretty sure that they suspended my account without prior warning so I question the usefulness of this feature.

It is a farce and I cannot do anything against this from a legal point of view. YouTube's Terms and Conditions state

"YouTube may remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User's access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion."

Short: We do what we want with your account and delete anything were we do not like the smell of it. The smell does not have to be "copyright infringement".

This statement in their terms and conditions (which you have to agree on, when you create a YouTube account) should be reason enough for any professional to consider, if they really want to use such a service for their business purposes. I certainly would not. I learned my lesson to diversify, duplicate and consider any account and content published their "throw away" and "replicable", like a Hotmail.com email account.

Having local backups of any content is of key relevance to this, Also the saving of URLs and IDs of the videos itself for example. Perform a backup of subscriber names and comments (if they are important) on a regular basis.

Regarding subscribers, I had email notification enabled for everything at my YouTube account and kept all email notifications of new subscribers. I have already created a list and now need to contact them to let them know about my alternative accounts.

I also found the following statement, which I also mentioned in my blog post at SearchEngineJournal.com. It states:

"Users with suspended or terminated accounts are prohibited from creating new accounts or accessing YouTube’s community features."

Well, I had two other accounts already before this incident. I created one new one and plan to open another one to avoid putting all eggs into one basket and also keep the subject of the individual channels/accounts clean and separate. I don't know what I did wrong to justify the suspension of my account and do not feel as if I did anything wrong. As I mentioned, I already had two of the accounts already, before my main account was suspended. One, the sacreleases account even had (and has) more videos than my primary account.

I decided to take my chances and ignore this statement. It is as general and card Blanche as their other statement in their Terms of Use.

So now I have my old account "sacreleases" for everything related to BBS, ANSI/ASCII art, Demo Scene etc. I use this account (which I also created prior the suspension) for everything related to society, politics and that sort of things. I created the new account CirqueDuSoleilGuru for all the Cirque du Soleil and Performing Arts related content. I spent hours to get 80+ videos up at the account as quickly as possible. It went pretty smooth after a long preparation time before hand. The channel got a lot of traffic as a result of this and I made it yesterday even to spot 32. In the YouTube Top 100 "GURU" channels by number of views. Not bad eh?


I also got 12 subscribers to the channel within less than 48 hours.

I want to open a forth account for everything related to marketing, SEO and that sort of stuff, but there is no rush and I have way too much to do at the moment to do it right.

Some other things that I noticed in regards to YouTube that also raised some questions in my head are things like: What happens to the groups that I created with my suspended account? They are still working and show my old account as the group creator and administrator, but I cannot use that account anymore to administer the group. Mhh?

I created the group Cirque Fans and Warez Scene. They are now without a "leader" and manager.

p.s. Depeche Mode did also not respond to my mail that I sent them via MySpace, as expected. I mentioned that already at my journal at deviantART.com and can only repeat what I stated there.

"Be careful who you praise and support, they might not worth it."

Last but not least. If you should notice any reference, link, embedded player etc. on my site that refers to a video that is not available anymore, please let me know about it. You can send me a quick note via the contact form here, quick and anonymously, if you want to (just use a throw away email address or a fake one, if feel like it). Don't do that of course, if you want me to respond to your message hehe.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

YouTube, Depeche Mode and Infringement of Crap

I am really mad! Things get worse more and more. I still did not have the time to write my planned article about the current issues with the existing copyright laws and their inadequacy for the real social web world of today.

I am staring since Saturday at a suspended YouTube account of mine (my main one at YouTube.com/CarstensVlog). I cannot log-in to the account to check messages etc. and all of my 160+ videos under the account are not accessible.


The "nice" thing is that YouTube did not even bother to send me a notification about this. They just suspended the account. I wrote them an Email and also sent a fax asking why my account was suspended and that they enable it again. I got a few hours earlier an email from YouTube about the removal of one of my videos due to infringing the copyright of Depeche Mode. I had six Depeche Mode videos uploaded under my account, five of them were the different music video and live versions of my favorite DM song "Never Let Me down Again". The Sixth song was the 1988 live version of "Everything Counts" at the Rose bowl in Pasadena. They were all added to my account about 9 months ago.

One of the DM videos was already taken down in March (3 months ago) where I asked YouTube who exactly claimed the copyright and requested to take the video down. I also asked to get a copy of the 72 user comments the video had acquired that I can send it to the band and ask them, if this is what they consider infringement of their copyright and harming their record, video or concert ticket sales?

YouTube was not willing (or able, or both) to provide me with those comments.

And now also the take-down of the second video and to top it all off, the suspension of my YouTube.com account. Are all my videos infringing copyrights? "No" and "Jain". The "Jain" could be made a "Yes" technically, but if a TV station grabs a promo video of somebody and airs it without asking for permission, that somebody is very unlikely to sue the TV station for copyright infringement... more of the opposite would be true, that somebody would probably be thrilled and happy. It's like writing a press release and a newspaper actually picks it up and publishes it. I am surprised that marketing material (which is intended to expose as much people as possible to) is not automatically treated like a press release, but I am not a lawyer to be able to answer that question.

Guess what, YouTube, who is quick to take crap down without checking is always slow when it comes to responding to the inquiries and communication of the content publisher. This is not the first time. YouTube took down in the past a video from a different YouTube account of mine on behalf of a company who did not own any rights on the video at all. The video recording of the MS DOS PC demo was released under what we call today "creative commons", but without using the legal gibberish. Back when it was released, creative commons did not yet exist as far as I know. In that case YouTube did also not bother to respond to or put the video back up. I re-uploaded it again with a nasty message to the ownership-thief to check first that you really own anything about a video before you claim it to be your own.

I am also mad at Depeche Mode, who I expected to know better than this.I used to be a MySpace friend of the band and sent them a long message via the MySpace mail system yesterday. They have probably their henchmen reading the messages for them and give a crap about the rant and unhappiness of a 22 years long fan of the band. At least Ronan from VNV Nation is reading and responding to his messages personally. I also talked to Ronan and Mark from VNV about copyright stuff and they are much more realistic and relaxed about this.

I will now post my message to Depeche Mode that I sent yesterday at MySpace, before I removed myself from their MySpace Friends list.

Subject: Disappointed and Pissed off, thank you and well done

I made all video versions of my favorite song of yours "Never let me down again" available on YouTube in shitty 320x240 resolution. I took it from ALL your concert and singles DVDs that I own. I also added some personal comments and details to the description to express my support and love for you.

The videos attracted many comments and multiple discussions and sharing of memories and experiences. Really good and heartwarming stuff.

On April 25, 2008 was the first video taken down, the 1987 singles version, after being up for over 6 months and attracting 72 comments (real comments, no junk and no spam). YouTube stated that "Depeche Mode" was claiming the material being infringing.

I am sure that you never looked at the published video yourself. I even doubt that your henchmen look at the stuff and simply filtered videos by name.

Yesterday was the live version from 2005 taken down (Touring the Angel, Live in Milan). That is not all, my account at YouTube was suspended yesterday too, My account with over 160+ videos and only 6 of those were Depeche Mode videos. Now all of my videos are inaccessible. I did not get an email about the suspension. The last email that I got was the info that "Depeche Mode" claimed that the video (Never Let me down again, Live 2005) is infringing and taken down.

This is f(self-censored)king* great!!!

*I don't use the "f" word lightly; it’s the second time within the past 12 months actually. The last time before now was when I got my Green Card after living for over 7 years in the United States, with a short break, where I was forced to leave the country, because I ran out of a visa because it reached and exceeded its maximum lifespan... I wanted to let you know this to put things into the right perspective.

What do you think was happening to your content? Do you seriously believe that you lost any album sales, let alone concert ticket sales as a result of the fan postings of low resolution videos of a song of yours on a video sharing site?

Looking at the responses and comments, I'd say it did the opposite. You probably had album, video and ticket sales as a result of this. I was asked to post other songs and versions of your music. I only did it for one song, the Everything Counts version of 101. I declined the other requests and responded with the info which DVD the song is on and where to get it.

I cannot believe it that I was a fan of yours since 1986 when I was still living in East Germany and thought that it will be the end of the world, because I could not get a ticket to your one concert in East Berlin in 1987 (at the Werner Seelenbinder Halle) and believed that I would never be able to see you live. Well, fortunately for me the Berlin Wall did come down 2 years later. Who’d known? A friend of mine spent the equivalent of over 4 months salary of an average East German worker to buy off a ticket from one of the guys who got a ticket. My friend was 14 t that time, I was 13. The tickets to that concert were not sold. They were given for the most part to schools and they gave it to "exemplary" good students (Depeche Mode fan or not). Most of your real fans never had a chance to get a ticket. They had to buy it off from the "good" students for small fortunes. Not many had that kind of money, I certainly didn't even own 4 months of salary of an adult at that time.

What I have (and still have, shipped from Germany to California) is the original and only published Vinyl record with Depeche Mode songs in East Germany by "Amiga". You have no idea how hard it was to get that.

But all that is now past and you could file it under teenage stupidity or whatever you want. I am now thinking about throwing away all my Cd's and DVDs and even that damn Amiga Vinyl record of yours, considering your attitude towards your fans who do nothing more than evangelize your music and promote your albums, videos and concerts by publishing low quality version of your music and concert videos.

Good Job.

I will now remove you from my MySpace friends; however, I always had an open profile that allows messages to be sent to me, even if you are not a friend of mine.

It does probably also not matter, because I don't think that any of you even bother to read your own emails and have just another henchman do it for you and file this message under "rants"... done, thank you very much. We appreciate your damn money and business, but give a crap about you and your stupid personal problems with us.

Bye
a former Depeche Mode Fan.
1986 (starting with "A Question of Time") to 2008 (ending with infringing on your shit)

So... that was that. Now I still have to battle with YouTube to get my account back up again. That I am not just full of s... and make up an issue where there isn't one can be seen, if you have a look what else is going on at YouTube and other social media sharing sites. The Prince vs. Radiohead incident for example speaks volumes, all by itself.

I will not go further into details with this post. There is a lot more to say and to point out to make you understand the whole extend of this problem. I got to start working on my post, dang it. :)

There is only one last thing that I would like to mention. The purpose of the Copyright law is to protect content producers from rip-offs and not getting paid for their work appropriately when they should. It also prevents the commercial exploit of somebody’s intellectual and creative property, leaving the creator out of it. The law does not exist to be self serving. If a law is either not sufficient to do what it was created for or if it harms somebody else or does not cover relevant scenarios that are becoming norm and not exception, then a change of that laws become necessary or they will create more and more harm and less and less good.


Carsten aka Roy/SAC

The Beatles - Complete List of Songs

Something entirely different....

I stumbled across this information, which was burried in tons of frames and other search engine unfriendly code to make it hard to impossible to find, a list of ALL (yes, you heart right, ALL) Beatles songs plus URLs to lyrics and videos of the song (up to five different versions for each song) on YouTube.

I spent already a lot of time on formating the list and make it post ready that I will use a short cut for the introduction and copy parts of the Wikipedia article about the Beatles, the brits John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr with their infamous mop-tops. :)

"The Beatles were a pop and rock group from Liverpool, England. The band are recognised for leading the mid-1960s musical "British Invasion" into the United States. Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and homegrown skiffle, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock. Their clothes, styles, and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.

The Beatles are one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music. In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one. This commercial success was repeated in many other countries; their record company, EMI, estimated that by 1985 they had sold over one billion records worldwide. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles are the best-selling musical act of all time in the United States.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Beatles #1 on its list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. According to that same magazine, The Beatles' innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today."

Studio albums

• Please Please Me (Parlophone, 1963)
• With the Beatles (Parlophone, 1963)
• A Hard Day's Night (Parlophone, 1964)
• Beatles for Sale (Parlophone, 1964)
• Help! (Parlophone, 1965)
• Rubber Soul (Parlophone, 1965)
• Revolver (Parlophone, 1966)
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone, 1967)
• Magical Mystery Tour (U.S. only. Released as a Double EP in the UK) (Capitol, 1967)
• The Beatles ("The White Album") (Apple, 1968)
• Yellow Submarine (Apple, 1969)
• Abbey Road (Apple, 1969)
• Let It Be (Apple, 1970)

The Songs

1	A Day In The Life	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
2	A Hard Day s Night	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
3	A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues		Video 1
4	A Taste Of Honey	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
5	Across The Universe	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
6	Act Naturally	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
7	Aingt She Sweet	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
8	All I ve Got To Do	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
9	All My Loving	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
10	All Together Now	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
11	All You Need Is Love	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
12	And I Love Her	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
13	And Your Bird Can Sing	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
14	Anna	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
15	Another Girl	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
16	Any Time At All	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
17	Ask Me Why	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
18	Baby It s You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
19	Baby You re A Rich Man	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
20	Baby s In Black	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
21	Back In The U.s.s.r.	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
22	Bad Boy	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
23	Band On The Run		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
24	Beautiful Dreamer		Video 1
25	Because	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
26	Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
27	Besame Mucho	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
28	Birthday	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
29	Blackbird/yesterday		Video 1
30	Blackbird	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
31	Blue Jay Way	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
32	Boys	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
33	Can t Buy Me Love	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
34	Carry That Weight	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
35	Cayenne	Lyrics	Video 1
36	Chains	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
37	Child Of Nature	Lyrics	Video 1
38	Circles		Video 1	Video 2
39	Clarabella	Lyrics	Video 1
40	Come And Get It	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
41	Come Together	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
42	Cry Baby Cry	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
43	Cry For A Shadow	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
44	Crying, Waiting, Hoping	Lyrics	Video 1
45	Day Tripper	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
46	Dear Prudence	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
47	Devil In Her Heart	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
48	Dig A Pony	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
49	Dig It	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
50	Dizzy Miss Lizzy	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
51	Do You Want To Know A Secret	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
52	Doctor Robert	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
53	Don t Bother Me	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
54	Don t Let Me Down	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
55	Don t Pass Me By	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
56	Dr. Robert		Video 1	Video 2
57	Drive My Car/the Word/what You re Doing		Video 1
58	Drive My Car	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
59	Eight Days A Week	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
60	Eleanor Rigby/julia		Video 1	Video 2
61	Eleanor Rigby	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
62	Every Little Thing	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
63	Everybody s Trying To Be My Baby	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
64	Everyone Had A Hard Year		Video 1
65	Fixing A Hole	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
66	Flying	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
67	For No One	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
68	For You Blue	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
69	Free As A Bird	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
70	From Me To You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
71	From Us To You	Lyrics	Video 1
72	George Harrison		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
73	Get Back	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
74	Getting Better	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
75	Girl	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
76	Glass Onion	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
77	Gnik Nus		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
78	Golden Slumbers	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
79	Good Day Sunshine	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
80	Good Morning, Good Morning	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
81	Good Night	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
82	Goodbye		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
83	Got To Get You Into My Life	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
84	Hallelujah, I Love Her So	Lyrics	Video 1
85	Hamburg		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
86	Happiness Is A Warm Gun	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
87	Hello Goodbye	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
88	Hello Little Girl	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
89	Help!	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
90	Helter Skelter	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
91	Her Majesty	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
92	Here Comes The Sun	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
93	Here, There And Everywhere	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
94	Hey Bulldog	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
95	Hey Jude	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
96	Hold Me Tight	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
97	Honey Don t	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
98	Honey Pie	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
99	How Do You Do It?	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
100	I Am The Walrus	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
101	I Call Your Name	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
102	I Don t Want To Spoil The Party	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
103	I Feel Fine	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
104	I Me Mine	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
105	I Need You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
106	I Saw Her Standing There	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
107	I Should Have Known Better	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
108	I Wanna Be Your Man	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
109	I Want To Hold Your Hand	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
110	I Want To Tell You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
111	I Want You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
112	I Will	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
113	I ll Be Back	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
114	I ll Cry Instead	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
115	I ll Follow The Sun	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
116	I ll Get You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
117	I m A Loser	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
118	I m Down	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
119	I m Happy Just To Dance With You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
120	I m Looking Through You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
121	I m Only Sleeping	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
122	I m So Tired	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
123	I m Talking About You		Video 1	Video 2
124	I ve Got A Feeling	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
125	I ve Just Seen A Face	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
126	If I Fell	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
127	If I Needed Someone	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
128	If You ve Got Trouble	Lyrics	Video 1
129	Imagine		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
130	In My Life	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
131	In Spite Of All The Danger	Lyrics	Video 1
132	Inner Light	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
133	It Won t Be Long	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
134	It s All Too Much	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
135	It s Only Love	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
136	John Lennon		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
137	Julia	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
138	Kansas City		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
139	Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
140	Lady Madonna	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
141	Leave My Kitten Alone	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
142	Lend Me Your Comb	Lyrics	Video 1
143	Let It Be	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
144	Like Dreamers Do	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
145	Little Child	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
146	Long Tall Sally	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
147	Long, Long, Long	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
148	Love Me Do	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
149	Love You To	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
150	Lovely Rita	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
151	Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
152	Maggie Mae	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
153	Magical Mystery Tour	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
154	Martha My Dear	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
155	Matchbox	Lyrics	Video 1
156	Maxwell s Silver Hammer	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
157	Mean Mr. Mustard	Lyrics	Video 1
158	Memphis		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
159	Michelle	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
160	Misery	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
161	Money	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
162	Mother Nature s Son	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
163	Mr. Moonlight	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
164	My Bonnie	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
165	No Reply	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
166	Norwegian Wood	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
167	Not A Second Time	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
168	Not Guilty	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
169	Nowhere Man	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
170	Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
171	Octopus s Garden	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
172	Oh My Love		Video 1
173	Oh! Darling	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
174	Old Brown Shoe	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
175	One After 909	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
176	Only A Northern Song	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
177	Ooh! My Soul	Lyrics	Video 1
178	P.s. I Love You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
179	Paper Back Writer	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
180	Paperback Writer	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
181	Penny Lane	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
182	Piggies	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
183	Please Mr. Postman	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
184	Please Please Me	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
185	Rain	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
186	Real Love	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
187	Revolution 1	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
188	Revolution 9	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
189	Revolution	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
190	Rock And Roll Music	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
191	Rocky Raccoon	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
192	Roll Over Beethoven	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
193	Run For Your Life	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
194	Savoy Truffle	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
195	Searching	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
196	September In The Rain	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
197	Sexy Sadie	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
198	Sgt. Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
199	She Came In Through The Bathroom Window	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
200	She Loves You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
201	She Said, She Said	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
202	She s A Woman	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
203	She s Leaving Home	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
204	Sheik Of Araby		Video 1
205	Sie Liebt Dich	Lyrics	Video 1
206	Slow Down	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
207	Soldier Of Love	Lyrics	Video 1
208	Some Other Guy	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
209	Something	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
210	Step Inside Love		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
211	Strawberry Fields Forever	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
212	Sun King	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
213	Sure To Fall	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
214	Take Good Care Of My Baby	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
215	Taxman	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
216	Teddy Boy	Lyrics	Video 1
217	Tell Me What You See	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
218	Tell Me Why	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
219	Thank You Girl	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
220	That ll Be The Day	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
221	The Ballad Of John And Yoko	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
222	The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
223	The End	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
224	The Fool On The Hill	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
225	The Hippy Hippy Shake		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
226	The Night Before	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
227	The Word	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
228	There s A Place	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
229	Things We Said Today	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
230	Think For Yourself	Lyrics	Video 1
231	This Boy	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
232	Three Cool Cats	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4
233	Ticket To Ride	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
234	Till There Was You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
235	Tomorrow Never Knows	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
236	Too Much Monkey Business	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
237	Twist And Shout	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
238	Two Of Us	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
239	Wait	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
240	We Can Work It Out	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
241	What Goes On	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
242	What You re Doing	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
243	What s The New Mary Jane?	Lyrics	Video 1
244	When I Get Home	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
245	While My Guitar Gently Weeps	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
246	Why Don t We Do It In The Road?	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
247	Wild Honey Pie	Lyrics	Video 1
248	With A Little Help From My Friends	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
249	Within You Without You/tomorrow Never Knows		Video 1	Video 2
250	Within You, Without You	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
251	Words Of Love	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
252	Yellow Submarine	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
253	Yer Blues	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
254	Yes It Is	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
255	Yesterday	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
256	You Can t Do That	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
257	You Know My Name	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
258	You Like Me Too Much	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2
259	You Never Give Me Your Money	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
260	You Really Got A Hold On Me	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3
261	You Won t See Me	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
262	You ll Be Mine	Lyrics	Video 1
263	You re Gonna Lose That Girl		Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
264	You ve Got To Hide Your Love Away	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5
265	You ve Really Got A Hold On Me		Video 1
266	Your Mother Should Know	Lyrics	Video 1	Video 2	Video 3	Video 4	Video 5

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Criss Angel and Cirque du Soleil - 'Believe'

Just two days ago Criss Angel announced the official name for his new show, a partnership project with Cirque du Soleil.

The show will premiere on September 12, 2008 at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The name of the show will be "Believe".

Watch the video of Criss Angel where he annouces the title of the show and why he choose this title below.


Backup link to video at YouTube.com.

Also announced was the contest "See It to Believe It!", which is free to enter for anybody, running from April 17th to June 14th, 2008.

The Grand Prize includes:

• Round trip economy airfare for two;
  
• 2 premium seats to the Gala Premiere of Believe on September 12, 2008;
  
• 2 nights in a Pyramid Spa Suite at the Luxor;
  
• The opportunity to meet Criss Angel in person;
  
• Access to the private premiere after-party;
  
• US $ 500 cash spending money.
  

Visit CirqueDuSoleil.com/CrissAngel for show details and to enter the contest.

About "Believe"
CRISS ANGEL Believe™ will be a haunting exploration deep inside the inventive mind of mystifier Criss Angel as he hovers between the land of the living and a surreal world uniquely woven together by the distinctive imaginations of Criss Angel and Cirque du Soleil.

Unlike traditional magic-themed shows, CRISS ANGEL Believe™ transcends any preconceived notion of what it means to be emotionally engaged by the arts of mysticism and illusion. Imagine a fantasy, an allegory, a highly theatrical tableau of mood, reverie and emotion set against a backdrop of dreamlike darkness and light.

Criss Angel stars as a surreal, enigmatic Victorian Noble. Along a path of imaginative exploration, he encounters Kayala and Crimson, two women who represent different aspects of femininity, four bizarre Ushers, who will introduce the audience to the baroque theater of Criss’s mind and a high-energy troupe of characters and dancers who mix a multitude of styles into a high-energy visual feast, punctuated by moments of grace and sensuality.

The stunning illusions in CRISS ANGEL Believe™ will not be presented as standalone elements, but as interdependent components using heightened imagery, fantastical creatures and impossible feats of legerdemain, all of which will be integrated into the dazzling, colorful fabric of the story.

Remarks
If you don't know who Criss Angel is, check out the videos here.

I was mentioning the upcoming show already several months ago and I am really looking forward to this new show. The mix of magic and arcobatic will be interesting to watch. If you are not familar with Cirque du Soleil, check out my Cirque primer.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Cirque du Soleil's KA Extreme and Delirium Videos

I finally got around to work with the last of the Cirque du Soleil documentary/making of DVD's, "KA Extreme". I got almost 10 minutes of show footage out of it, about as much as I got out of "Lovesick", the DVD to Zumanity, a bit more than I got out of the Kooza DVD "A thrilling ride through Kooza", but a lot less than from "Flow", the "O" tribute and "The mystery of Mystere" where I was able to get 20 or even close to 30 minutes of actual show footage out of the DVDs.

The audio for this video was taken mostly from the official soundtrack of "KA", which is like the DVD "KA Extreme", available at the Cirque du Soleil stores online and offline.



Backup link to video at YouTube.

While the following video for the Cirque du Soleil arena show "Delirium" is not based on a DVD (because there is none), so is it still over 6 minutes in length and consists of various snippets of content that I found at various places on the internet. Some sources were official Cirque ones, others were not.



Backup link to video at YouTube.

That's it, now I have to wait for new releases on DVD or other sources of quality video footage from Cirque du Soleil shows. Well, there are a few more shows coming this year, so I probably do not have to worry too much :).

Btw. If you like the videos, but never watched a Cirque du Soleil show live, I can only encourage you to spend the money at least once and watch a Cirque du Soleil show in person.

No video can capture the actual show experience. This is no joke, Cirque du Soleil shows are infamous for having several things going on at the same time. Even a very good multi angle DVD recording of one of their shows does not (for the once where they have multi angle recordings of the show on DVD, see my Cirque primer) and will never not get the same experience across as if you would be sitting in the venue with all the others to enjoy (and maybe even interact with) the show.

For more content and information to Cirque du Soleil, visit http://RoySAC.com/cirque, which redirects to my very comprehensive Cirque du Soleil primer article that I wrote not very long ago. I created the alternative URL, because it is easier to remember than the full URL to the actual blog post.

Enjoy the videos! Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Nobody will get killed at Affiliate Summit, WTF?

I decided to make this post at my personal blog and not at ReveNews.com or Search Engine Journal. This story is definitely not worth it and getting more people spending time on it than there already are does not help anybody or chances anything. I also "nofollowed" a bunch of links in the post to prevent that I pass any SEO value to those content, if this is only a dirty "link baiting" scam.

I wanted to leave a comment at Shoemoney's blog, but he disabled comments for some reasons. I wasn't aware of the post and the discussions that surrounded it a few weeks ago, because I was busy with getting my two laptops up and running again.

Let me take a step back and tell you about the background story of this a little bit. I was at Affiliate Summit West 2008 in Las Vegas in February and had a great time. There was obviously an incident at the ShareASale "Under the stars" party at the Palms hotel and casino that I was not aware of. I was at the party, but did not notice what was going there at one point in time, which had to do with the behavior of some of the guests at that party.

There were some kids from an upstart company, including its CEO and co-founders, called Tatto Media (yes, only one "o", it's an intended typo) who had a few drinks too much and started sexual harass some of the women at the party, which is illegal in the United States. The guys were eventually kicked out of the place and that was it.

The sinners and 2007 Finalists: Best Young Entrepreneurs by BusinessWeek; Lee Brown, 23; Lucas Brown, 23; Lin Miao, 20 years old of Tatto Media.

Details emerged later, after the event at the ABestWeb affiliate marketing forums (a thread with the title "Tatto Media - Idiots at Sagamore/Shareasale Party"), where several eyewitnesses stated their experience and opinion about the inappropriate behavior of those young men.

The boys are obviously famous and nominated for a Business Week award for entrepreneurs and start-up companies, which created an even bigger backlash for them. To make a long story short, Shawn Collins, co-founder of Affiliate Summit stepped in and stated that this company is banned from all future Affiliate Summit events. That might be a bit too harsh the one or the other might say, but that is not what I wanted to debate about today.

Following the discussion was a blog post by Jeremy Shoemaker at his blog Shoemoney.com with the title "How Long until Someone Is Killed at an Affiliate Summit". Those are very strong words. Jeremy who did not attend this Affiliate Summit talked about this incident and claims that this event attracts all the scum and thugs of the affiliate marketing industry, which makes the whole event not only unpleasant, but dangerous, where you have to fear for your health and life, on top of that.

The statements he made seem to be the living proof of the existence of parallel universes, because the event he describes is by no means the event that I encountered three times already. I didn't only feel safe, but also in good company. I met many new and pleasant people and did not come across any of the thugs and scoundrels Jeremy was talking about.

Some others made similar contradicting statements in the comments of Jeremy's blog post while comments were still open. I could not understand why Jeremy would make such statements in public, knowing that he causes direct damage to the reputation of the whole event and not only deter potential attendees, but also casts just another negative shadow over the industry as a whole as if we did not have enough problems already.

I thought that Jeremy did not attend Affiliate Summit because of the overlap with the SMX West event in Santa Clara. I decided for Affiliate Summit versus SMX and thought that he decided for SMX. This is obviously not the case and things seem to be running a bit deeper.

I have a feeling that the story with Wickedfire forums from early February plays a role in all this. Jon, the owner of the forums did a rant about "super affiliates" like John Chow, Amit Mehta, Zac Johnson and specifically Jeremy Shoemaker, titled "John Chow, Shoemoney, Super Affiliate Mindset Camels".

The write-up was bad enough to cause Jeremy to involve his legal counsel and send out a Cease and Desist letter to Jon Fisher (You can learn more about that at the Geekcast podcast from February 2008, Shoemoney vs. WickedFire and the cease and desist order of Jeremy against Jon Fisher.). I don't know for sure and have no hard evidence to back it up, but I cannot get rid of that feeling that tells me that this must have something to do with what Jeremy wrote.

I only fail to be able to make the connection between Jon Fisher from Wickedfire and Shawn Collins or Missy Ward from Affiliate Summit that would be reason enough for Jeremy for trying to damage the Affiliate Summit conference as a whole.

For everybody out there who comes across this post of mine and read the post by Jeremy, I can tell that fear to attend Affiliate Summit is completely unnecessary and not warranted. As in every big city are there places and people you don't want to surround yourself with, if you prefer to stay out of trouble, but to avoid this is a choice everybody has to make for himself. I am looking forward to the next Affiliate Summit, August 10 - 12, 2008 at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, MA.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Nationalism does not Imply Blind Obedience to your Government

I blogged about one week ago about a poll and discussion that was going on at deviantART.com about trust in governments, which then spun off into a discussion about the current US administration, 9/11, the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act and also some positive developments that are actually getting people from around the world and from different cultures together, things that help to strengthen peace efforts and support global understanding and tolerance.

The discussion continued after I made the arguments that you can read in my previous post. First was there a misunderstanding that needed remedy. The fellow deviant thought that there is a misunderstanding about our positions and the actual meaning of "Anti War" or "not Anti War" etc.

He stated…

P: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anti-war to come off that I was Pro-war. I was merely talking about the people who believe that we should never go to war no matter the cause. I see that by the posting above that you are not anti-war as I originally thought. I am not Pro-war, but I believe there are times when war is necessary."

That required of course a response on my part.

Me: No need to be sorry, communication worked, misunderstandings clarified, everything peachy hehe.

p.s. I am Pro-Peace, not Anti-War. That's a big difference."

"Anti – Anything" is bad in any case, because it implies opposition, resistance, blocking, refusing, denying, hating, violence, destruction and other negative things that are usually unwanted side effects that come from the "Anti" part of it. Being "Anti" something is usually not helping the issue and more often a reason why things escalate rather than de-escalate and resolve.

The right approach to do something about something you do not like is not to be Anti it, but "Pro" it’s opposite. By supporting and promoting the opposite of the things you do not like, you automatically cause the effect that the thing you do not like spreads further and further in the society, because it cannot spread where you’re a conflicting view and opinion is predominant, unless it is better and viewed by others as the right choice versus yours. That means that you seem to have the wrong opinion that requires rethinking and probably adjustment.

Well, we went off talking about the videos that I pointed out to him. He explained his not questioning what the government is doing with his sense of nationalism.

P: "I see what you are saying and you raise a good point, but I am probably going to be one of those people who no matter what evidence are placed in front of him he will still believe in his country. I am a nationalist and that comes from the heart sometimes and not the head, and it is a lot harder to change someone's heart than to change their mind. Let me say though that I respect your argument. Which actually all of this reminds me of a friend of mine who served in Afghanistan and is very nationalist, even more so than me (if you can believe that), but he tends to let his nationalism get in the way of his arguments sometimes and tends to say immature things against someone who is arguing with him. This does not convince people of anything. I have tried explaining this to him in the past, but he is the type of person who hates someone for what they believe. I on the other hand do not dislike someone for what they believe. I only dislike them if they act upon something which I believe is against my beliefs and morals, and even then I usually don't hate them for it. I just don't understand why they choose to do so."

Nationalism is no excuse for blind obedience though. Love of your country and trusting the people that you elected into power to run the country are not the same thing and never should be the same. Here is how I explained the why…

Me: "Then you should be even more critical and alert than any of those flaky folks who live of sensational journalism and controversy. The evidence shows that what happens is the dismantling of this country (heard about NAFTA?). The United States that you know and love will not be any more in less than a decade if everything will work as planned. There will even not be a United States anymore.

Your constitutional rights and freedom are today already worthless in the case if you are suspected to be involved in terrorist activities (alleged, true or false, does not make a difference there). They can put you in jail, ship off to Cuba and torture you for months without you ever hearing neither a charge against you nor having the right to see an attorney.

All it takes is a suspicion by somebody that you do something fishy and that the officials believe the person who is suspecting it instead of you. If you love your country then you cannot turn away your eyes from what is happening. Nationalist in its true meaning means "for your people" and not "for your leaders".

There is a word for the latter though and that is called Fascism. Being a born German, you can believe me that I know a thing or two about that and its catastrophic consequences for your own people and other people as well. Fascists don't care about people, not even their own, they only care for themselves.

Think about that! Look inside you! I am not bs'ing you!”

The excuse "I was only following orders" was used extensively by Nazis after the end of World War 2 to justify their actions that were against international law and are generally considered unethical to say the least. Although in Germany is Nationalism considered to be the same as Fascism, is this not the correct meaning of Nationalism and most other countries also don't see it the same way as the Germans.

Nationalism as used here does more mean something like Patriotism or love for your country. Those are generally good things, but they do not imply blind obedience and also don't provide an excuse for allowing the government to do something that is unethical or worse, unlawful as it is already defined by international law.

I hope he will listen to what I said and rethink what is happening today and more importantly starts questioning the actions that the government is allegedly taking on his behalf and his interests.

Some updates regarding the positive things that are also happening in the world.
The homepage for the "Global Citizen Declaration" project moved from Idclr.org to Neo.org. I created a new version of the banner, which reflects the new domain name.


I also created a Facebook.com page for this project where I added a number of videos and other informational material. If you have a Facebook user, check it out and "become a fan", if you like what you see and hear.

I also came across a cool movie that I would consider "must see" for anybody. It deals with the subject of Mindset and what humans can do, instead of what humans are allegedly cannot do. It is very practical and not really political, although the principles discussed there are important for this political debate as well. Both require a mind shift by the people involved.

The movie is called "The Secret" and here is the trailer for it.
You can get it in full on DVD from Amazon.com ($20).



Backup link to video on YouTube.com.

More stuff to think about. It boils down the same basic things at the end of the day though. All it takes is a mind shift and stop listening to the lies you get told by others and also by yourself. You will feel great relieve and positive energy flowing through you when this mind shift is happening. Things will become clear and easier than they were before. Pessimism will give room for optimism, Hate for Love, Egoism for Egoism that makes sense and includes tolerance and understanding.

Nobody can take this step for you. You are the only one who can make the shift happen. Are you ready for it?

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

About (mis)Trust in Governments, the War in Iraq, New Global Communities and the Human Mindset

A social networking friend of mine from Germany with the name Tobias Roetsch aka Taenaron from deviantART.com started an interesting poll a few days ago.
He asked fellow deviants the question:

"Do you believe in your government and do you support their decisions?"

Within a few days 281 different people voted. Based on the numerous comments in the discussion threads to the poll is it obvious that the deviants who participated in the poll come from all over the planet, the USA, Canada, UK, Australia are only a few of those countries. People from virtually every continent participated. The results were alarming, but not surprising.

Only 10% of the people who responded believe in their own government and support what it is doing. Over 50% don't trust their government at all with more than half of that not trusting any government for that matter.

• 38% (106) deviants said just partly...
  
• 27% (76) deviants said everything is a big lie. They just want to get more power.
  
• 26% (72) deviants said No! (Tell me why)
  
• 10% (27) deviants said yes! (Tell me why)

Well, it wasn't for long that the discussion was shifting from the generic subject of trust to specific issues, such as the ominously war on terror and the much more real war that is waging in Iraq for more than six years now.

Here is are some snippets of the discussions followed by my own rather long responses, which also lead me to write this blog post. Here is the argument between the German "T" and the American pro-war "P".

T: al qaeda was paid by the us government...it's a US-war, not a world war. so they should stop asking other countries for help

P: Lol, where do u get ur facts from? The Onion?

T: some videos, some texts, internet....911 was a project of the us-government

P: the fact that 9/11 was planned does not necessarily mean that it was the U.S. who planned it.
…
Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff.

T: they just needed a reason for the new wars. since 2001 you're in war. I would think about that. where are the mass-destruction weapons of the iraq?

P: The reason for going into Iraq was never just for finding weapons of mass destruction. It was to stop terrorism and promote democracy. The weapons was just something that they thought might have been there. It wasn't the actual reason for going to war. I will give you one thing that I'm a little disappointed in the government for. They are spending 4x as much money on Iraq as they are on Afghanistan and Afghanistan was the reason we were in the middle east in the first place. I don't know why they think that Iraq is 4x more important than Afghanistan.

I heard the last arguments too often already and felt inclined to respond to it. Here is what I wrote.

Pearl Harbor to enter WW2 and the Sinking of the British luxury liner Lusitania by German U-Boats (with 123 American who got killed also) to enter WW1 or the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of Austria-Hungary by Serbs , which was the reason for Austria-Hungary to declare War on Serbia and thus started WW1 and the staged (proven in this case) attack of the German radio station "Gleiwitz" on 8/31/1939, which was the reason for the Germans to declare war on Poland and thus trigger WW2. Or the Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, which triggered the official involvement of the US in the Vietnam War (the incident was a lie by the way, that one happened to be proven too).

All very "fine" reasons, all worth the tens of thousands or even millions of people dead and land, houses, industry, infrastructure etc. devastated.

Right!

So this "reason" is just another bad example of "good reasons" to go to war. It would only be nice, if the administration would admit it and not pretend that they don't know what people are talking about.

P: You come off as a little anti-war to me, so trying to argue being in a war would probably be a waste of my time.

Then I replied:

Well, I think that being "anti-war" is something the vast majority of human beings have in common. People who are "pro-war" are in the minority and usually not fellows you want to hang out with. I only stated facts. Those incidents were actually the official "cause" for the various parties to enter or start a war. Looking back at those "causes" make them look almost ridicules and for almost certain unreasonable.

I am only one who thinks before and not afterwards already that the official "cause" is ridicules and unreasonable. I also believe that there are always non-public (in official) agendas that the involved parties follow, which include the real reasons for the war. I also believe that the reason for not making the hidden agendas a public one and the real reasons the official ones has to do with the fact that those hidden reasons are even more unreasonable and unethical (to say the least), maybe not in the eyes of the people who created the agenda, but most certainly in the eyes of the average people.

There are moments where it is right and just to fight and a good reason that does not make the loss of a brother, father or son less painful, but at least gives it some purpose and results that benefit many people in the years to come. This war in Iraq right now is not one of those moments though. I am all ears to hear reasons that will provide the purpose that is missing. So far I only did hear reasons that won't hold up to their promise to fulfill this task.

I also felt that I should respond to the request made by "P" when he stated the following:

P: "Ok, whatever you say. I'll give you merit if you can actually show me proof of this. I never bought into the whole government conspiracy stuff."

I wrote in January a blog post about some documentaries that ranked no.1 on Google Video on that day, which addressed those questions and related ones.

I then made following statements and recommendations:

I noticed that some of the links did not work anymore and replaced them with working ones. Check out "Zeitgeist". It has proof that even average folks who are smart enough to make it to/through high school can understand.

I rejected it also at first, but over the past months was a noticeable shadow of doubt cast over my old believes that it cannot be which may not be. I got suspicious for a number of reasons. It started with stuff that did not add up right from the start, such as the two airplanes that allegedly vaporized entirely, yet human remains were found that were supposedly from some of the hijackers. I saw pictures of many plane crashes, worse than the ones from 911 and never saw that an airplane virtually vanished as a result of the crash. Physicists actually back up this gut feeling and say, that no modern airplane on the planet of the types that supposedly hit the pentagon or crashed in Pennsylvania could possible disintegrate to the extent as they supposedly did on 9/11.

Several parts of the Boeing (and Airbus) airplanes are made of special heat resistant aluminum/titanium alloys that are used in the space programs as well. No kerosene, TNT or any other flammable or explosive in or outside the airplane produces enough heat to have this effect. Look at airplane crashes from the past, including full explosions of airplanes and high altitude/high velocity crashes and you will notice that certain parts always seem to remain somewhat intact. That's the stuff that is made of aluminum/titanium alloys.

The area around the Pentagon is full of cameras that record everything that happens around it 24/7. Why all camera tapes around the pentagon were systematically confiscated and not a single snippet of film that shows at least an airliner approaching the Pentagon building (to show undoubtedly that it would hit the building in the area that we saw later on television?) was ever released to the public.

There is no moral, security or other reason why none of those recordings should see the light of the day, if they confirm the official story. If there would be another reason for holding it back, the question would remain, why they don’t say so.

The events that followed in the years after 9/11 in the name of it went far beyond anything that is realistic, practical and reasonable in relationship to effectiveness in the War against Terrorism that make even conservatives speak up loud and strong against those actions.

People who were pro war and who lost 1st degree relatives in the attacks started to turn away from the people who supposedly were responsible for the death of their loved ones and strongly disapprove of the current administration’s policies and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those people do not change their attitude because of some fluffy air and made up stories of sensation hungry conspiracy theorists who suspect "illuminati's" or the "devil" behind every act of violence that happens on this world.

Look again and tell me honestly if you don't have at least a serious shadow of doubt that the official story might not be the story that reflects the actual events on that day. You do not have to believe that some of the claims made in those publications for example are actually true, but some the things mentioned are beyond claims and hard facts that you can verify yourself with outside and non-related sources that have nothing to do with the events of November 2001.

But, there is Hope!

All not so nice stuff, right, but there are remarkable things happening on the Internet as well that somewhat counter those bad stuff that just seems to want to make you puke.

I will keep my writing to a minimum and let pictures, music and other people speak for me.

Global Mindshift
at Global-Mindshift.org


Pangea Day
at PangeaDay.org

Videos from people for people worldwide see for example this video called "Stop the Clash of Civilizations" (at YouTube), which was directed by Avaaz & Agit-Pop, new global web movements that are made up of people from all over the world who connect, share and collaborate to make this world a better place.

Global Citizenship Declaration
now at NEO.org (moved from idclr.org)

I created a full size animated banner for it.

The domain moved from idclr.org to neo.org so I think I have to update my banner now hehe. To declare your Global Citizenship, visit NEO.org to learn more or Send;

• Your Full Name
  
• Your birth city or town
  
• Your photo or a link to a picture of you
  
• A Personal Declaration for Action you wish others to join you in for the common good

and optionally;

• A link to your online profile or website (Xing, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Flickr etc.) and/or any position/title you have.

To: n(at)neo.org also CC a friend so they support you and also become a founding parent of Earth.

TEDTalk
Videos at TED.com in general.

I would like to highlight the following presentations:

• Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight
  
• Ben Dunlap: The story of a passionate life
  
• Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world
  
• Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen
  
• Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

Get involved, raise your voice, because you have a voice. You are stronger than you might think and unstoppable if unified with like minded around the world aiming for the same goals. It's only a slight mind-shift that is needed to get you to fully grasp and understand this. This little shift will remove so many of your "IFs" and "BUTs' that you won't believe it.

Join US today!

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Registry Cleaner and General System Maintenance Issues with Windows XP

I hear over and over again that geeks and experts strongly recommend NOT using any registry cleaner software to clean up and fix your Windows XP registry database.

Chris Pirillo from Live.Pirillo.com posted a video and blog entry about it a few days ago where he explains why he thinks that most cleaner software potentially causes more harm than good to the system if used by an inexperienced user.

What is the Issue?
I see the point that determining if an entry is really not needed and obsolete or vital to a programs or even operating system operation is in many cases nothing more than an educated guess.

However, I also know that programs are also often doing a bad job with cleaning or removing registry entries they created, extended or removed, if you decide to uninstall the software via the control panel or uninstall link (if one was created by the software application when you installed it originally).

If you would install 50 programs and afterwards uninstall them again without even launching any of it once, your windows registry files would still become multiple times larger than they were before the installs.

A large registry database means slower access by programs and Windows itself to the entries they need or create during normal operations. With growing size also increases the risk of corruption or fragmentation that could make entire sections of the registry unreadable.

Re-Install Windows Again and Again? What?
So what are you going to do? One suggestion that I hear all the time is to "simply" reinstall everything once every 3, 6 or 12 months or so. Great idea!

I use my computer daily and even if I have a detailed plan or script to install and update all the software that I use and need, does a reinstall take me several days without the ability to do anything productive with it during that time. Some software requires several hours to install itself (MS Visual Studio is probably the software that holds the world record for the time it takes to install it), then you still have to reboot the computer several times before you can continue to install software. Then you have to get updates and service packs again and install those, to make sure that you have all the latest patches and security updates applied to your system and closed known security holes.

I tweak or customize the settings of many programs to streamline the processes where I use the software for. In most cases is it not possible to backup the settings and restore them on another system. In some cases exists a feature, but it is hidden somewhere in the application and has to be done manually. Let's face it, chances are that you either don’t do it or wanted to do it, but forgot it or cannot remember who to do it properly. The result is the same in any case, the reinstalled software has to be configured by hand again to make it work the same way it used to before you started the re-install of your system.

Nope...That does Not Work Either
Making a backup of the program folder and doing a restore on your fresh installed Windows XP will not work in 90% of the cases, because most software copies some of the files needed to run it properly to directories outside its own program directory. The most common place where software copies files to is the Windows System32 directory. Add to that the fact that most programs write critical configuration settings to the Windows Registry database and are have problems if those entries are missing or are unable to start entirely.

No matter what you do, you end up being screwed.

Even if you don't uninstall any of the software, Windows is able to manage to pollute itself more and more just during normal operation. Also most software developers are not doing a good job and contribute significantly to the pollution of your system. Non-essential stuff is being written to the registry, just in case, files copied to the system directories, also just in case, existing versions of the file with the same file name are simply overwritten, regardless if it is the same version or not, or worse, an entirely different file from another software application that happens to use the same file name for a file it copies to the Windows system folders. Why are they doing it? … Because they can.

Faceing the Truth!
System failure or a system that is messed up beyond hope of ever being able to clean up again is inevitable. It is not a question of IF but WHEN the only option you have left to solve your problems with your PC, is biting the bullet and waste your time again on a complete re-installation of everything. I always dread this day and often delay it as much as I can, even if that means that I have to tolerate flaws and problems with the computer that compromise my daily work, slow me down or in the worst case cause the loss of data or something you worked on for an hour or more without saving it to have a system crash take everything you did with it to its blue screen grave.

Tools that I use, anyway
I use tools like the freeware utility CClean and also commercial tools from Uniblue, such as their Registry Booster and SpeedUpMyPC, once in a while to clean up some of the mess that is created by normal system usage to regain some performance back. I never had the case yet that using a registry cleaner was killing my system, but I am aware of the risk. Each of the tools I use show you first what they want to do and let you decide on a per item level, if you want it or not. They also provide a backup option that is enabled by default in the case that a vital entry was removed from the registry by accident.

Solutions to the Dilemma, Anybody?
I have not found a solution that is practical and working to solve this dilemma. I am still searching for options and solutions that either help me to keep the system clean or as an alternative help me to reduce the time it takes to re-install and reconfigure my entire system to make a frequent re-install of Windows a viable option for me.

1. Changing How Software is Installed
Forcing software to install all files only to its own program directory and not to use the windows registry to store vital settings, but save them also somewhere in its own program directory (e.g. in an .INI file or something like that), sounds good and like a plan, but how can you do this in reality. Software that offers you a choice is the exception. Not using software that does not offer this feature is also out of the question. I wish I could make this choice. So how can we do it? I am unaware of any tool that will do the trick for you. Is there anything? Is it even possible to create something like that?

2. Speed up the Windows XP Re-Installation
The alternative is to speed up the process of re-installing your entire system. Windows XP comes with a tool that you can find under Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools. It is called "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" and lets you backup several of your Windows desktop and other settings. This tool was designed specifically for the case of a reinstall of Windows to make it easy for users to re-apply their customization settings to a fresh installed Windows XP system. Unfortunately, this does only work for some of the configuration settings that I do worry about. It does not support third party software, not even for other products from Microsoft itself, such as Microsoft Office.

It would have been great, if Microsoft would have made it an open solution, or better, a mandatory solution, that software developers could use to allow the export (and import) of their software’s configuration settings.

So what settings does the tool support?

• Accessibility
  
• Command Prompt Settings
  
• Display Properties
  
• Internet Explorer Security Settings
  
• Internet Explorer Settings
  
• Mouse and Keyboard
  
• Network Printer and Drives
  
• Outlook Express
  
• Regional Settings
  
• Sounds and Multimedia
  
• Taskbar Options
  
• WinAmp Media Player (how got that in there?)
  
• Windows Media Player

Also some folders are backed up

• Quick Launch folder (for the current user)
  
• Desktop
  
• Fonts
  
• My Documents
  
• My Pictures
  
• Shared Desktop
  
• Shared Documents

Also the settings for the registered file extensions can be saved. This are basically the file associations for "open", "view" and "edit" that you can use to tell Windows, which application to use for known file types, depending on the desired action taken for a selected file (in Windows Explorer etc.)

The advanced mode allows experienced users to add files, directories and file types (extensions) to the list, if they were not selected by Microsoft automatically already. Folders like your Internet Explorer favorites (C:\Documents and Settings\ (Username)\Favorites) or the "Sent to" folder (C:\Documents and Settings\ (Username)\SendTo) are probably folders that you want to transfer over to your new installed system, just to mention a few.

The appearance of WinAmp in the list made me think. Maybe there is the option for programs to tap into this backup wizard, but nobody knows about it, thus don’t use it. The wizard even told me in the process that I have to make sure that WinAmp has to be installed on the new computer first, before I restore the settings for it to avoid problems.

You cannot add custom settings via the wizard, not even in advanced mode. You also cannot add specific blocks from the system registry to be included in the backup (and restore).

Ideas? Anybody?
Does anybody know about a tool that scans the computer for any installed software, its registry entries and file locations (including the files that were installed outside the program directory) and then adds all the needed settings, files, folders and file extensions to the settings of the backup wizard?

What else can I do to speed up the re-install of the system? Being able to create a setup CD or DVD for Windows XP itself and for the larger applications like MS Office etc. which already contain the latest Service Pack and any additional update and security patch would be helpful. I read somewhere that there are ways to do that somehow, but it looked very complicated and not as if a regular Windows user would be able to do it himself.

I am open to any suggestion at this point. If you have any ideas, comments, additional questions, recommendations or opinions to this general problem, feel free to comment in the comments section at the end of this post.

Thank you
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Googlefight - Karsten vs Carsten

I stumbled across a funny gimmick tool via the John Andrew's "SEO Secrets" page (which is also funny). It is called Googlefight.com.

John used it to demonstrate that Black Hat SEO is winning the Google game over White Hat SEO. Well according to Google fight it does hehe.

How does the tool work? Simple, you enter any two phrases into the specifically designed form at Googlefight.com and the tool will check the Google search results for each of the two phrases to see which one has a higher figure for estimated number pages found in the Google index. The phrase where Google returns a higher estimate wins. That's it, no more and no less.

Just for the fun of it did I initiate a Googlefight between "Carsten" and "Karsten", which are both comon spellings of my first name. I always thought that Karsten is the more widely used spelling than how my first name is spelled, "Carsten", with "C" and not a "K" at the beginning. So I was a bit surprised about the Googlefight results, which shows "Carsten" as the winner with 11,7000,000 results versus 8,080,000 for "Karsten". This is a clear victory by over 3,000,000 pages.



I don't think that my internet activities, which contribute a large number alltogether might caused this unexpected result, but hey, even I did not produce 3,000,000+ pages with my name written on it hehe.

Or how about a battle between "ansi art" and "ascii art"? Well, said and done. I knew already who would win this one, ASCII art of course with 2,030,000 versus just a meager 419,000 for ANSI art.



or how about AMIGA demos versus PC demos? A classic :).



Oh, I thought PC demos would win by a much higher margin than that. Maybe I underestimated the power of the Commodore AMIGA hehe.

Okay, enough of this! Well, it has been fun. Try it out yourself and fight out some "battles" of your own. :)

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Software Piracy, Abandonware and Today's Messed up Copyright Laws

I was browsing in the Defacto2.net document archive of the PC scene and found a reference to an interesting article written by Stephen Granade titled "Warez, Abandonware, and the Software Industry".

The article discusses in detail the subjects software piracy, copyright with a few on it from a perspective of a new type of software piracy called "Abandonware".

Abandonware provides access to games that are old, out of print and not supported anymore by the software company who created it or owns the copyright. It provides multiple functions; one of which is to provide support for rightful owners of the software to get a replacement, if their copy was damaged or the disk where it was stored on is not readable anymore. It also provides people access to historic games that cannot be acquired legally anymore, since they are not being sold anymore. The third function is to provide current game designers with an archive to study how other game designers in the past worked and how they did things that worked or not.

Abandonwares sites often provide also the means to play the old games, especially if they are for hardware platforms that are also unavailable today, such as Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Super NES and other old Nintendo consoles, Sega consoles, old Sony Playstations, Atari game consoles and home computers. This means are emulator programs for modern computers (mostly Windows PC) that emulate the old hardware platform and load old game code to run on your computer. Even old PC games for MS DOS that don't run on modern Windows PC anymore require an emulator to make them work.

The problem is that this activity is illegal.

Copyright is valid for 75 years. No computer game has reached this age yet, because computers are not even around that long. 75 years are an eternity in the computer market where virtually nothing survives more than 5 years before it becomes obsolete and unavailable to purchase.

Old stuff is not profitable enough for companies to care about, but when it comes to copyright, some of them actually do care, even though they do not provide anybody the option to obtain the usage rights legally. There is no official body for the preservation of old software. There are some non-profit organizations that concern themselves with the preservation of old computer hardware.

If it wouldn't be for enthusiasts and Abandonware sites, many of the software from the past would already be lost forever and forgotten by most people. Maybe the name mentioned in a magazine and some eyewitnesses who actually played the game in the past would be the only thing that remains. This reminds me of my previous post, which is also about copyright, but specifically about an issue with music and the impossibility of an individual to get the required licenses necessary for a legal re-distribution on a small scale.

The copyright laws need to change IMO.

They are fuzzy when it comes to software anyway. Stephen explained that nicely in his article, quote:

"Intellectual property rights are more nebulous than traditional property rights. If I own something, it's easy to see the harm if my rights regarding it are infringed: I have lost something tangible. Intellectual property rights deal with intangibles, and as with all intangibles it's harder to see the direct harm. If I copy a game you wrote, you still have the code and can sell your game. What exactly have you lost?"

Who is enforcing the copyright anyway?

The two major industry groups are the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA). Both organizations take software piracy seriously. And they will continu