Piracy: big deal or not?

We've all heard of digital piracy. An alarming statistic shows that 7 out of 10 computer users (Mac and PC) have committed digital piracy once, and what's more, 6 out of 10 do it regularly. This post will simply highlight a few of my opinions on what the authorities and governments are doing and what they should be doing to combat piracy.

I am not a software, music or video pirate nor do I intend to become one but I do know many, many people that commit it and are open about it. This really does annoy me. I am someone that purchases software, TV shows, movies or music whilst those people are getting way with it! If industries go on about how damaging it is then why are people being caught not only this but tax payers' money is being used to "heal" up those industries whilst piracy continues to burn a hole in the creative, digital world. They know that it's illegal yet they continue to do it...

I also believe that these 'anti-piracy' schemes are, in some ways, promoting piracy, I mean, US version of The Office is at around season 6 yet in the UK the US version is at season 3; as a big office fan I really want to see season four yet I can't due to DVD region coding. Surely all this is doing to making it easier for people to simply pirate The Office instead of waiting months for it to come out in region two DVD!

Another way that I believe that piracy can, and should, be tackled is by ISPs alerting the police or copyright infringement organisations when someone pirates something then the authorities would allow the ISP to look deeper into that user's history of accessed websites or connections to websites and then take appropriate actions.

So, that was my first blog post for thecreativeone.tv and I really do feel strongly about this and I do also believe that too many people believe that it's fine to pirate something from the digital industries. Comment with your opinions - thanks for reading.

BetterTouchTool

If you have a Apple Magic Mouse, or have requested one for Christmas, you may be interested in the awesome piece of software I've found. 

BetterTouchTool is software for Mac OSX 10.5 or 10.6 and allows functionality that Apple haven't already added to their Magic Mouse built in software. Developed by Boastr, the software is free to install and allows you to use the pinch, 1,2,3 and 4 finger taps along with a whole other bunch of gestures. It also allows you to tweak the mouse a little more than the normal 'System Preferences' defaults.

I recommend you to download and at least try it. Once you have, comment on this post about your experience and how well (or not) it works for you.

Happy Holidays!

Jonny

Visit my Blog and Twitter

A Dock For Windows?

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to get the Mac dock on Windows? Well there are many different docks available on the web, such as, Objectdock and Rocketdock. Well i searched various searches to find one that i liked.

The first one i tried was Rocketdock. It had a lot of settings but it didn’t have the themes and appearance i was looking for. It had some cons which were being extremely light weight, it didn’t take up that much RAM usage, it did not have any lag issues, and it always ran smoothly. This came with a few icons but they seemed that they were for 12 and under?

Secondly, I tried Objectdock. It was pretty nice, it had a lot of settings but it also didn’t have the themes and appearance i was looking for. It didn’t run very smoothly, it lagged very much, and sometimes froze and stopped responding. One thing that I don’t like about it is that it has a paid version, the paid version adds tabbed docks, you can have multiple docks on your desktop at the same time, multiple monitor support, and system tray support. This comes with very useful docklets also, such as, Start Menu Docklet, clock docklet, weather docklet, and web search docklet.

Lastly, I tried RK Launcher. At first, it was confusing but it got really easy to use after a whille. Honestly, RK Launcher is my favorite out of all of these docks. It comes with about 100+ icons (Mac Icons), not as many docklets as Objectdock but almost as many, the dock spaces are identical to Mac OS 10’s, it has the Mac Genie Effect, and it is extremely easy to custimize and use. It runs very smooth on my Desktop, no lag issues at all. Sometimes it freezes and stop responding, but not very often. I want to say so much about RK Launcher but I would bore you. Out of all of the docks I have tried, this one is the most Mac-like. Here’s something to pay attention too, its only in Beta, so this is only the beginning of the custimization, in the future there will be many more features such as, docklets and icons and they will fix most of the issues.

Want An RK Launcher Custom Pack? It comes with Rk Launcher, 1 extra theme, about 30+ more icons, iShut Program, 3 powerful docklets.

Download Link Here

One recomended docklet you should get is the stacks docklet. It does the stacks and grid feature when you open a folder in the dock. Very similar to a Mac’s dock! If you want a dock for Windows, Rk Launcher is the one to pick. I recomend you go try it out! If I Was to put these in order to least to greatest it would be, Objectdock, Rocketdock, then RK Launcher.

Ratings:

Rocketdock – 4 out of 5

Objectdock – 3 out of 5

RK Launcher – 5 out of 5

Here are the download links to each:

1. Rocketdock
2. Objectdock
3. RK Launcher

If you want to custimize your docks and get more themes, docklets, icons, etc here are the links:

1. Wincustimize
2. Add-Ons
3. DeviantArt

Twitter | YourWeeklyApps | Windows93Tutorials | Blog