From-Usenet

[From Usenet: 1.2.02 0143]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.sys.mac.newuser-help Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Albert –

First off, I hope your experiences with OS X continue to improve, as you indicated they had started to in a followup post. Figured I could go ahead and jump in the fray, though… ;)

In article <asteg-5FD600.02164401012...@news.mindspring.com>, Albert Steg <as...@mindspring.com> wrote:

The installation process disbabled my Enternet software, crippling my internet access, and even when I got back to system 9 I found my internet aliases (eudora and netscape) hidden from my desktop and replaced with Explorer. Felt like a Microsoft ploy.

That’s something of a surprise. Each time I’ve done an OS X install (starting with the Public Beta), it’s gone smooth as silk. Really unsure as to what may have gone on to actually disable anything.

…and the interface is totally new, isn’t it?” Why is there no warning or explanation in the manual that this system represents a radical departure from the Apple of the past 15 years?

Well, it’s definitely a new system, but the manual I got – while really underwhelming – did at least have a cursory “this is what you’re gonna get” feel to it. Much as ‘puter people sterotypically go with a “install first, read later if something explodes” attitude, sometimes it can be helpful to at least flip through the documentation at least once first… ;)

I am, along with others, somewhat surprised that you were caught so completely off guard – wherever you’ve been, you must have been really out of touch. If you start poking around the web, though, there’s a lot of good information on all the various changes, both why they were done and what the various repercussions are. The OS X manual that Carl linked to (http://homepage.mac.com/rgriff/files/osxguide2.pdf) is a good start, I’d also recommend spending some time digging through Mac OS X Hints (http://www.macosxhints.com/), lots of good info on there.

Am I alone in being dismayeed and bewildered here? These huge Playskool-style icons,

These can be scaled up and down to your preferences…they are a wee bit on the big side by default.

the inability to open two windows at one time

You can have more than two open at once. Check your System Preferences and View Options (under the Finder’s View menu) for the various options there.

…the oily, gimmicky sluuuuurping of windows

Some people like the ‘genie’ effect, some don’t – I’ve switched it to the ‘scale’ effect, as it’s a bit less processor-intensive (and therefore a bit quicker on my machine).

down to the Windows-like “dock”

It takes some getting used to, but I’ve found the dock to be a very nice addition (though, I’ve gotta admit, I’ve liked certain aspects of the Windows taskbar too). I keep my dock devoid of any aliases, so that I don’t have to try to distinguish between icons of running aps and icons of apps that I can run if I want, and only use it for whatever’s running at the moment. For me it works much better as a application switcher than as a launcher, but different things work for different people…experiment with it a bit, after the initial shock, you may find it more to your liking.

instead of the crisp windowshade feature of previous systems….

As has been noted by a couple people, there is a shareware program that will bring windowshading back to OS X (though I don’t use it myself).

these are improvements?

Overall, yeah…just improvements with a bit more learning curve than has been necessary for past OS updates. But then, past OS updates didn’t completely rewrite the OS from the ground up, either…. :)

How about an explanation of the itools program, rather than just thrusting it at you in the config process?

Apple would do well to explain this a bit more. However, breifly, iTools isn’t so much a program as it is a set of services that Apple provides that you can use or ignore as you like. It includes free e-mail with a mac.com suffix, an online storage space (your iDisk), and some other features that can be explored in more depth on Apple’s iTools site (http://www.apple.com/itools/). You don’t have to use any of them, though, if you don’t want or need to.

Can I use Eudora instead of Itools. . .

Yup – I think there’s even an OS X version of Eudora out by now. Check VersionTracker (http://www.versiontracker/macosx/) to be sure.

or do I have to use Itools to access eudora now?

Nope, though you probably can use Eudora to access your iTools mac.com e-mail account if you’ve set one up (though I’m not 100% sure on that).

. . . granted I have to give it a chance, but I am not looking forward to this.

Well, go ahead and poke around, play for a while, and give it that chance. There’s some culture shock – especially since you apparently didn’t know what you were in for – but it’s not that bad once you get used to it.

[From Usenet: 12.19.00 0228]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.culture.alaska Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Hey all –

Just a quick note that I’m working on starting a new website tracking local Anchorage musicians, who’s playing where, things like that. Features on the site include a calendar of events, downloadable .mp3 files of some performances, and a BBS. I’m mainly focusing on underground/alternative stuff, from punk to rave to urban, but tend to wander all over the place depending on what information I get to post.

Feel free to stop by and take a look sometime…

http://djwudi.dyndns.org/akevents/

Thanks! :)

[From Usenet: 2.18.99 0000]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.tv.star-trek.voyager Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

  1. THE MUSIC WAS LACKING BIG TIME! Music is a powerful tool to help a movie have depth, feeling and emotion. The music could have been so much more deep and could have added so much more to the feeling of the movie.

I’d have to watch it again (hurrah for VCR’s) to really make a judgment, but there was at least one instance where it really caught my ear. During one of the shots of the shuttle approaching the borgplex, there were a couple low, twangy notes like someone plucking two of the lower strings on a piano. Caught my ear mainly because the last time I can remember hearing that theme used was in ST:TMP as the Enterprise is making its entrance into V’ger. Visually similar shots (though the one in ST:TMP was much more visually impressive (okay, and about half an hour longer) than VOY:DF’s borgplex entrance), good use of old themes. Which brought another thought into my feeble little brain. In advance, please forgive me if this has been hashed and re-hashed many times over in the past, I just subscribed to these groups after watching VOY:DF.

Has anyone ever thought much of the possibility that the planet that transformed the Voyager probe into V’ger was the Borg home planet, before they got to the point of striking out on their own and assimilating everything that sneezed twice in their general direction? The general purpose seems to be very similar — it’s not that big a step from “learn all that is learnable, collect all the possible knowledge in the universe, then merge with the creator” to the Borg’s assimilation of other species and knowledge bases into their own. Additionally, it was hypothesized in ST:TMP that the Voyager probe had fell through a black hole to this ‘machine planet’, been repaired/reprogrammed there, and sent away. Mix in a little time distortion along with the black hole, and V’ger could have been sent on its voyage back to Earth long before the Borg advanced to a point where they could move out on their own, and still have time to fill its databanks and make it back home. Just a thought…would be interested to hear if others have explored this line of reasoning. Would love to see it explored in a show at some point, but that may just be fanboy drooling (grin).

Incidentally, what happened to all the knowledge that V’ger transmitted to Earth?

And while I’m at it, I suppose I could throw in the Transformers homeworld/Borg homeworld parallels, too…. Are there any? Probably…I’m just blowing smoke out of my ass at this point, but if I can think of it now, it’s probably been beaten to death before now…

[From Usenet: 1.19.99 0000]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the rec.music.industrial Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

In article &lt;77v6ki$eo...@nnrp1.dejanews.com&gt;, diakon_rad...@newempire.com wrote:

She is the Mariah Carey of the Jihad! :-)

If you go to any gothic clubs you have probably heard her voice on back up on the remix / latest version of Sisters Of Mercy track “Temple Of Love”.

She is one of few artists who managed to cross the barriers between Hebrew and Arabic listeners in the Middle East.

Incidentally, she just provided the voice for one of the supporting characters (unfortunately, I can’t remember which one) in the animated film ‘Prince of Egypt’ – I figured it was her when I heard her sing, then checked the credits to be sure.

[From Usenet: 12.26.98 0000]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the rec.arts.startrek.fandom Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Need help from someone out there – found somthing in my family’s house, trying to figure out if it’s worth anything.

Star Trek Book and Record set from Peter Pan Industries/Power Records (catalog #BR513), featuring the stories A Mirror for Futility and The Time Stealer, copyright 1976, still in it’s original shrinkwrap, unopened. One small (less than 1cm square) notch taken out of top right hand corner, otherwise undamaged.

Any ideas? Please e-mail me at djwo…@geocities.com, as I don’t frequent this newsgroup.

[From Usenet: 8.22.98 2300]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.music.nin Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

In article &lt;6rl9d0$fv...@news.doit.wisc.edu&gt;, Mother’s Little Helper &lt;val...@stoned.com&gt; wrote:

RaumKatze2 &lt;raumkat...@aol.com&gt; wrote:

> You can play any music with any movie or tv show, and there are bound to be syncronicities with lyrics, dynamics, rhythm, and other stuff.

One of the scariest exqamples of this was one day in 1995 when we noticed that Sesame Street was perfectly synched with the Sir Mix-a-Lot album we were listening to…it was scary.

One of the funniest I’ve seen was watching Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” in fast forward while listening to nin’s broken album. Fit way too well…funny as shit, too.

[From Usenet: 7.20.98 2300]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.music.techno Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

In article &lt;6p2df9$k3...@nnrp1.dejanews.com&gt;, mats...@statcan.ca wrote:

So does anyone know the song I am talking about? :) I have a small mp3 that is a minute long of this Antiloop Megamix.. “Dr. Jones” If anyone has the full song in mp3 format, or knows if its obtainable on CD , please let me know…

Much as spending money on Aqua hurt, I know the track…I found it on a japanese import CD called Aquamania: The Remixes Vol. I – picked it up at a local Camelot, of all things. Truthfully, the disc surprised me…a lot of the remixes are pretty good. Those songs can acutually get decent when you strip out the vocals and tweak the remixes enough… “

[From Usenet: 7.19.98 2300]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.music.nin Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

Hmmm…

Curious…are there any amninnies (did I get that right…?) other than me up here in Alaska? I’ve been lurking around this newsgroup for probably about five years now, and am more and more curious about whether or not any of the names I see here either live or visit this frozen wasteland. So far the closest I’ve known of is finding out that Robin’s got family up here, but as I’ve yet to spot the only other heater t-shirt I know of it the state, I haven’t found her yet. Gets kind of boring up here…the general population of Anchorage is pretty uninteresting.

Hm. I know…as soon as I win the lottery (y’know, Ed McMahon knocking on my door and all that shit), I’ll see about taking over a local hotel and hosting a nincon up here just for shits and giggles…unleash all of you on the local population. It’s a fun thought…hell, it’d be funny as hell to sic a bunch of ninnies on the club I dj at — most of the kids there think that nin started with closer and marilyn manson are the height of being gothic. Ah, well, so it goes…I’ll escape from this place eventually.

Anyway, enough late night (early morning?) babble for now.

Laters…

[From Usenet: 7.11.98 2300]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.music.techno Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

In article &lt;6o3jrq$v4...@nnrp1.dejanews.com&gt;, joey...@hotmail.com wrote:

There is this old but good song back in 1992 I believe. It is a techno song or techno rave song with a woman singing….

“its a fine day people are ……” It has a suzanne vega beat and hard techno hits…The only words I remember is “ITS A FINE DAY…” PEOPLE ARE STILL SOMETHING?????

My guess would be either Orbital’s Halcyon (or Halcyon & On & On, same music, just a voxless dub), or from what I understand they took the vocal sample from a song by Opus3. Never caught the name of the Opus3 track, however.

It’s a fine day, people open windows, they leave their houses, just for a short while….it’s going to be a fine night tonight, it’s going to be a fine day tomorrow…etc.

[From Usenet: 6.4.98 2300]

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[Note: This was originally a post to the alt.music.makers.dj Usenet newsgroup. I’m including it here for completeness. Originally archived here.]

This may easily be a blatant newbie question, but…well, having just found this newsgroup, I guess I’m a newbie. So, bear with me, or possibly point me to a FAQ (should such exist).

Anyway…

I’ve been dj’ing up here in Anchorage, Alaska at various clubs for about five years now. Unfortunately, Alaska tends to run about (at least) two years behind the times in just about everything, especially music. Bleah.

So…I’m wondering if anyone has any pointers or tips as far as getting on any label promotional mailing lists (pre-release promo singles, etc.). It’s hard enough weeding through what new music we get up here to find the stuff worth spending the money on…freebies could be a major benefit. Plus, it’d be cool…

The current club I work at (Gig’s Music Theatre – http://www.alaska.net/~woody/gigs/ ) encompasses a fairly wide range of music (just about anything except country, rap, top-40, and hip-hop), but has lately been leaning much more towards the dance/progressive/house scene (no complaints here!), if that makes a difference.

Any info would be greatly appreciated…feel free to reply here, or use my email address at the bottom of this post. Thanks in advance!

Oh…and just to butt in on another thread…I learned beatmatching on the Pioneer CDJ’s (500’s, I believe), have used a couple Denon models, and currently use (at the club) a Numark (Denon ripoff). Having learned on the Pioneers, I prefer those (even though I’ve never tried dj’ing from vinyl), but have also found the Denon mixers quite useable. Even the Numark isn’t too bad, once you get used to having to constantly compensate for the lack of instant start (argh!). My feelings on the whole thread…try and get the opportunity to use both styles, you’ll get a feel for what you like. And if you can’t afford what you like…hell, if it works, get it! More money will come later, if things go well….