INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: mj7280 on February 25, 2004, 05:40:16 pm
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Do I need an Internet connection whenever I launch this software. It seems to fail whenever my sister takes my modem .. we share the same modem. Is this a bug or by design? I had been using iTunes for Windows which works fine, but wanted to try this out.
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What version are you running? We've made a change that should load a local page if you have no Internet connection.
You could also tell your sister.......no that might not work.
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You could also tell your sister.... to leave her hands off the modem.
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posted this over there, but the question was moved while I was typing!!
Here, Jim, I beat you to the delete button :D ;) <---- small joke, hope I'm not the only one chuckling, if I am, feel free to edit :)
Do I need an Internet connection whenever I launch this software. It seems to fail whenever my sister takes my modem .. we share the same modem. Is this a bug or by design? I had been using iTunes for Windows which works fine, but wanted to try this out.
All links generated by MC internally point to a redirector on jriver's servers, and that includes the start page. This is not configurable from within MC, so if you're dialing up, and you don't have a modem, the best you can do is try setting your internet connection properties to "never dial a connection". This way though, you will have to manually connect to the internet before starting a browsing session, or have a look at the startup options and see if it helps by setting the startup location to something other than "start".
-marko.
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>>You could also tell your sister.......no that might not work
lol .. yea, she is (or pretends to be) bigger than me .. until that changes I must keep my mouth shut, and also keep my hands off HER modem (she bought it!)
Marko, how do I set this up to bypass this 'redirector'? What is the purpose of a redirector?
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not sure of it's purpose, your version number is sent along with any other parameters, such as artist info for forwarding to the AMG website. So jriver could theoretically gather version usage statistics, and link AMG searches to ip addresses.
try the steps I already mentioned to try to gain some control. atm it's not config'ble from within media center. Maybe that will change later, maybe not.
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Marko,
We're not trying to do anything you might object to (I hope). We're just trying to stay fresh and current with our pages. If we have something important to say, we have a way to do it.
I hope you will appreciate that it's a fine line between communicating honestly and clearly with customers and (on the darker side) pushing too much stuff at them that they don't want.
We're trying to be good citizens, honest!
Jim
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Marko,
We're not trying to do anything you might object to (I hope). We're just trying to stay fresh and current with our pages. If we have something important to say, we have away to do it.
I hope you will appreciate that it's a fine line between communicating honestly and clearly with customers and (on the darker side) pushing too much stuff at them that they don't want.
We're trying to be good citizens, honest!
Jim
Yup. I'm aware of that, could you tell I was holding back? ;) I don't believe I posted any falsehoods above, and I also did my best to present the facts in a non-biased way.
What I think would be nice though is perhaps at least add a little mention about this stuff into the liscence agreement? Better still, apps such as winamp and trillian give you a tickbox allowing you to either opt in or out of the "send annonymous usage statistics" side of things?
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Maybe when we're older and smarter we'll do that.
Yes, I saw you were doing your gentlemanly best. A big "Thank You" for that.
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Kinder and gentler, you betcha.
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are you all saying that my listening habits are being stored at JRiver whenever I use their player. What if I have some stuff I listen to or watch that I do NOT want them to know about?? Does not seem 'gentlemanly' to me to know what I am doing in my own bedroom. Whenever I think that my sister has her ear against my door, I open it hard .. real hard .. hehe
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No definately not.
and the word was theoretically. What happens is that say, for example, you are listening to your fave rock band, and you see this entry on your MC tree that says "Artist Info" and you click on it.
What happens is an AMG web page opens up inside MC. To get that page, the artist name and your MC version number are sent 1st to jriver, who forward the request to AMG.
Consider this...
while jriver don't know who you are from this, they could in theory view the statistics sent in these links grouped by ip address. that's all. only when you personally request external information does this happen, not everytime you play a song, ok :)
(For the record, I am not comfortable with the arrangement.)
Now consider this.....
Suppose AMG were to fold? Suddenly there are all those MC's out there with non-working "Artist Info" tree nodes. This way though, all JRiver need to do is update the redirector and everyone's happy getting there artist info once more.
Seriously, it's nothing like you're thinking, if it were, a)no-one would use it and b)you'd have heard about it in the news :)
Like Jim says, it's a fine line to dance on :)
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We do tell your sister, though....
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are you all saying that my listening habits are being stored at JRiver whenever I use their player. What if I have some stuff I listen to or watch that I do NOT want them to know about?? Does not seem 'gentlemanly' to me to know what I am doing in my own bedroom. Whenever I think that my sister has her ear against my door, I open it hard .. real hard .. hehe
I am pretty sure this info is anonymous and not tied to you. What you watch is between you and all of your dead relatives who, as we all know, see everything we do from "the beyond". Hehehehe... (kidding, btw) (or am I?)
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Does not seem 'gentlemanly' to me to know what I am doing in my own bedroom.
Like A "Gentleman's Club"
we have a few here in town "The Bottoms Up" and "The Doll House"
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I know you are trying to make MC better for novices...not telling them about this will likely confuse them.
It's hard enough for us to understand. I don't think we could explain it to anyone else's satisfaction.
Did I mention that we now have a privacy policy?
http://www.musicex.com/privacy.html
I hope it makes you feel warm and fuzzy. I personally think it's a little bit of a farce: "We promise we will always be nice and never lie to you." But it's what the world expects and we don't want to let them down.
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I didn't realise that MC was collecting usage stats.
I really think MC should have an option to opt out of this. I happily upload stuff to yabb when I have a CD which it doesn't have, but I do that voluntarily. I WANT a choice.
I stopped using Real Player for similar reasons - as have a lot of people.
Real Player's brand image is like dirt among the more sophisticated user segment.
MC will suffer from this too if it heads in the same direction. The more sophisticated the user segment the more resistance there is to anything that phones home.
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Sauzee,
Before you call the cops, here's what we do. Try to decide if it's reasonable.
1. We log your IP address. Every web server in the world does this. If you think it's bad, uninstall your browser.
2. We log the version of MC you are using.
That's it.
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A Copy Of My Apache server log
xxx.25.102.132 - - [24/Feb/2004:20:21:52 -0500] "GET /Lyrics/J/johnnycleggandsavukabombsaway.txt HTTP/1.1" 404 328
xxx.174.185.228 - - [24/Feb/2004:20:21:52 -0500] "GET /MyPlugIns/promo/f.html HTTP/1.1" 304 0
xxx.25.102.132 - - [24/Feb/2004:20:21:52 -0500] "GET /Lyrics/S/savukaandjohnnycleggbombsaway.txt HTTP/1.1" 404 328
xxx.174.185.228 - - [24/Feb/2004:20:21:52 -0500] "GET /MyPlugIns/promo/promo_back.gif HTTP/1.1" 304 0
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"We promise we will always be nice and never lie to you."
HA!!! Now you have to!!!
We all know how important privacy policies are. If you state in your PP that you will never lie, then you won't. Everyone knows that.
CVIII
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Sauzee,
Before you call the cops, here's what we do. Try to decide if it's reasonable.
1. We log your IP address. Every web server in the world does this. If you think it's bad, uninstall your browser.
2. We log the version of MC you are using.
That's it.
Jim
OK that's fine. I called the cops off. ;)
Sorry - I got a bit carried away when an earlier post talked about MC collecting user/usage statistics.