Nappy rash

To operate the program, one has to log in to the website, napster.com, download the installer, which is only 619kb and install the software. Once Napster is installed, the program will ask you to register with the website for free!, and give you a user name and password. The program will also ask you if you8217;d want Napster to scan your hard disk for MP3s. You could be selfish and say no, or be magnanimous and agree, but then have an extremely slow connection, as there will be people trying to download music from your comp while you are online.

Then when you8217;re done with the formalities, you can get down to your business 8211; downloading music. Get to the search page, which will ask you details such as the artist8217;s name and the title of the song. The program then gives you the results of the search, and the sources of the files. It also tells you what kind of Internet connection the other person has, cable, ISDN or modem, and the name of the user, so that you can resume the download from the same user, if you get disconnected. Napster compiles a list of users worldwide, and gives you the widest selection of music on the net. This accounts for around seven hundred gigabytes of music, stored in around ten thousand hard drive libraries from which you can pick up the track you want. This could easily be the widest source of MP3s on the net, because no other website is physically capable of providing you such a vast assortment of music, and if you remember, MP3s as of now are mostly illegal anyway.

Okay, so by now you might think that this software seems divine, but well, not exactly. Napster is still in the beta stage, and has some bugs. And then there is one flaw for which no-one can be blamed except the users themselves. While downloading the song, both users have to remain online for the entire duration of the download. If one decides to disconnct, then well, you have a problem, since the transfer will be left incomplete. You then have two options, you can either wait for the user to log on again, or you can download the same file from another user, in which case your MP3 will have some glitches, such as pops or repeated sections.

And another, and even greater concern is the fact that Napster can be hacked rather easily. In fact, some cases of hacking have already been registered. What happens is that professional hackers snoop around your hard drive and see if you8217;re using pirated or copied software which, let8217;s face it, is very very common. Then they squeal to software companies, who can sue you for software piracy. Very slick.

But even with all the drawbacks, Napster is proving to be an amazingly popular software among college students the world over. Students with highspeed connections in the US have almost stopped buying audio CDs, since they can get the latest music off the net. With the introduction of personal and portable Mp3 players in the market, the numbers of audio CDs bought by the youth has fallen enough to get the record companies so worried as to sue the publishers of this software. If you want to be part of the quot;online music communityquot; that Napster claims to be, you8217;d better download the software before some judge clamps down on the site, shutting off your access to a good thing.