Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on April 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for money. Really, it’s appalling sometimes. I’ve seen some interesting eBay auctions before like people selling the free toiletries from hotels, but this is the first time I’ve seen people selling software that’s free from the developers on eBay. I’m sure it’s been going on for about just as long eBay has been around, but this was the first time I went and searched for it. It never crossed my mind that people would be selling FREE software, but I should have known better.

The first example: “Why pay a fortune for Adobe Photoshop when you can edit and draw pictures professionally with this professional paint program. This auction is for an instant download that you will receive by email once you have paid.”

The description above, sadly is for Paint.NET which can be yours on eBay for $4.90. Or you could just download it from the developer for free! They list it as ‘Full Professional Graphics Program– Photoshop Compatible.’ For one, Paint.NET isn’t Photoshop compatible, but what’s even more appalling is that people actually purchase this. The person selling Paint.NET along with several other FREE applications has a stellar 100% feedback!

Not only is selling the free software an easy way to make money (and highly unethical), it also looks like it’s an easy way to gather up feedback. What’s equally as bad is that this same user is selling Open Office and Nvu (comparable to FrontPage or Dreamweaver) for $4.90, as well.After the buyer has paid, the seller just directs them to the free download link that anyone has access to.

Download Paint.NET 
Download OpenOffice
Download Nvu

Next example:Ubuntu Linux – the normally free operating system is being sold on eBay for $1.99 plus $5.98 shipping charges. This gives the buyer a profit of $7.97 because all they have to do is go to shipit.ubuntu.com, enter in the buyers address, and Ubuntu sends out the disks for free. The seller doesn’t even have to ship a thing!

And just as the Paint.NET scenario above, people actually buy the software and leave positive feedback for this buyer, thanking him for the fast shipping. This particular seller is not the only one selling Linux, in fact, others are selling it for even more.

I know for sure that one of the developers for Paint.NET is aware of this, however he says that to his knowledge what they’re doing is not illegal because of the MIT License that Paint.NET is released under.

He found out about this from people who actually purchased the program on eBay and later fount out that they paid for a free program.  The seller in this situation does not specifically say what program it is, rather they just describe it.

I’m all about people researching before they buy, but considering these sellers have great feedback and they generally don’t specify the program that the buyer will be receiving other than to describe it, it’s hard to blame the buyer for not looking into it. It’s obviously an unethical way to do business, but it’s happening. Be sure to spread the word so that people won’t get scammed like this!

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We’ve seen plenty of speaker / PMP combos around these part, but the Podio — which looks kind of like a hairdryer to us — is designed for the cyclist on-the-go who just can’t bike without jamming to Green Day at a semi-loud volume. The Podio comes with a harness to attach it to the bike’s handlebars, and boasts a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that gets somewhere between nine and twenty hours of use per charge. The whole thing weighs 139 grams, boasts 2GB of onboard storage, and has a 1.5 watt speaker to get the party started. There are no details on pricing or availability as of now, but we’ll let you know when they come around — err… are on the market. One more photo after the break.

[Via Oh! Gizmo]

Continue reading Podio speakered PMP for cyclists sure to cause accidents, impromptu dance parties

Filed under: Portable Audio

Podio speakered PMP for cyclists sure to cause accidents, impromptu dance parties originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 May 2009 02:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on January 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

We all know people like free music and this was proven a few days ago when Last.fm launched their free on-demand streaming music service (with limits, of course).  They saw a HUGE spike in listeners, page views, and unique visitors shortly after it launched.  Knowing how much people love free music, it is then easy to understand why there has been so much hype surrounding a new start-up called Qtrax.  Qtrax uses the words “free” and “music” quite a bit on their site to describe “the worlds first, 100% legal and free Peer-2-Peer music application.” They were set to launch last night at midnight and early reports were praising the service to no end, especially since they said they had all 4 major record labels on board and more than 25 million songs to choose from.  All of the praises started to come to an end once people found out the real details…

As it turns out, the worlds first 100% legal and free Peer-2-Peer music application with all 4 majors on board actually doesn’t have all four on board. In fact, at this point, there are 0 major labels participating.  Webware says both Warner and Universal are in fact negotiating with Qtrax but that nothing was ironed out. Then BMG chimed in and said that they hadn’t set anything in-stone while EMI said there was no final agreement. At this point they haven’t launched the download yet and it could be another 24 hours before it is available. Another downside aside from the obvious is that when it does launch, songs will not be playable on the iPod or Mac Computers (yet).

Compensating artists would work as follows: Because users are required to use a special application, when you download and play the music, Qtrax can keep track. Money earned from the ads that you’d see in the application are then divvied out to the artists which you listen to for their work.

If Qtrax is actually able to get the four major record labels on board, this could be huge. But until they do, Qtrax is just another start-up with a lot of funding (30 million thus far).

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This week we added the Samsung Trance into the ranks of our top music phones, and there’s one good reason; it has great sound quality. With Bang & Olufsen’s ICEPower technology, the Trance also has 3D sound effects that provide wide, dynamic, and surround sound. All that and the …

It’s not a bad time to be a budget-minded shopper on the hunt for a full-size laptop — you’ve got a tons of nice options in the $600 – $1,000 range, and it sounds like HP’s recently-revised dv6t is a strong competitor. PC Mag just took the 16-inch machine for a spin and came back favorably impressed, with cheers for great keyboard and included numeric keypad, light weight, and HDMI output. Sadly, a host of bundled crapware put a significant load on the 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo and the integrated graphics were expectedly lame, but for $750 after rebate, you might want to add this one to your list. Full review at the read link.

Filed under: Laptops

HP Pavilion dv6t gets reviewed: nice for the price, but full of crapware originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 19:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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