wtansill recommends the saga of Jeff Price, who traveled from successful small record label owner to successful Internet-era music distributor. His piece describes clearly what the major record labels used to be good for and why they are now good for nothing but getting in the way. “Allowing all music creators ‘in’ is both exciting and frightening. Some argue that we need subjective gatekeepers as filters. No matter which way you feel about it, there are a few indisputable facts — control has been taken away from the ‘four major labels’ and the traditional media outlets. We, the ‘masses,’ now have access to create, distribute, discover, promote, share and listen to any music. Hopefully access to all of this new music will inspire us, make us think and open doors and minds to new experiences we select, not what a corporation or media outlet decides we should want.”

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Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Web services, Beta, web 2.0

While we often find ourselves thinking “the last thing this world needs is another desktop widget engine,” we might be willing to make an exception for Sobees. While we’d forgive you if you mistook Sobees as nothing but a desktop widget engine like Google Desktop, Yahoo! Widget Engine, or Vista’s gadgets and the Dashboard in OS X, it’s actually much more.

First of all, yes, Sobees does let you load modules on your desktop for doing things like making notes, showing the time and date, or interacting with the web. There are also nifty RSS and Twitter clients, and a web browser with a built in web search feature that lest you sort results by images or text links.

But there are at least three things that set Sobees apart from most other desktop widget applications.

1. Sobees widgets are highly customizable. You can resize any widget by clicking on a portion of the edge and dragging it in or out. You can also make widgets translucent or opaque, and choose from a variety of options for each widget.
2. Sobees widgets interact with one another, and you can share content from widgets with your contacts. For example, you can save an item from an RSS feed and share it with other Sobees users.
3. Your data is synchronized with a remote server, which means you can install Sobees on multiple computers and changes to one will be reflected on another. If you’d like to have a separate setup for your work and home personal, there’s no problem though, because you can set up multiple desktops.

Sobees is currently Windows only, but according to CenterNetworks, a Mac client is in the works. An API will also be released eventually which should dramatically increase the number of widgets available. Sobees is quite clearly still beta software. It takes a fairly long time to load the application, it freezes up periodically, and it uses close to 200MB of RAM. But Sobees is worth keeping an eye on. If you want to help test the software, you an sign up to participate in the private beta.

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Internet Public Library: Banking

First Banking Center - Hometown Banking At Its Ideal!

West Virginia Division of Banking - Charleston, West Virginia

Oklahoma State Banking Department

IBM Banking

Banking Law Prof Blog

Statistical Resources on the Web/Finance and Banking

Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve

About the Basel Committee

Banking Jobs in Banking Job Search.

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An anonymous reader sends us to ZeroPaid, which seems to be the only site in English to have picked up a story out of France involving Sony and piracy. Except this time the shoe is on the other foot. The small software company PointDev learned that Sony BMG was using a pirated license for one of its system administration tools. PointDev got bailiffs to raid a Sony property and they found pirated software on four servers. The source article (link is to a Google translation of French original) quotes PointDev’s spokesman claiming that the BSA believes 47% of software used in corporations to be illegal — whether he is referring to Sony in particular is not clear in the translation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Earlier this week, we discussed Adobe’s beta launch of Photoshop Express, a free, online version of the popular image editing software. However, as a number of readers pointed out, the terms of use included language which granted Adobe a wide range of rights to any pics that were made available on the site. Now, after receiving a great deal of feedback from potential users, Adobe has said their intent to rewrite the terms of use, as Ars Technica reports. David Morgenstern of ZDNet also notes the impending change, and briefly discusses the privacy and ownership concerns involved with content you post on the internet.

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wattrlz points out a NYTimes piece on the clout China could soon wield on antitrust matters and the impact it could have on Microsoft’s Yahoo bid. A new Chinese anti-monopoly law takes effect in August that’ll extend the nation’s economic influence far beyond its borders. Nathan Bush, an antitrust law specialist in Beijing, said the law represents the ascendance of China “as another regulatory capital contending for influence with Brussels and Washington.” The article makes it clear that no one knows how China will play its burgeoning antitrust influence — conciliatory or nationalistic.

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LuckyLefty01 writes “I’m 21, going to college, and working part time doing odd jobs like math tutoring. In the past nine months or so, I’ve discovered and taken to programming (so far mostly C/C++/Obj-C). I’m now looking seriously at something in this area as an eventual full time job. Since I don’t have much scheduled this coming summer, it would be great to try to get a job of some sort at a tech-related company in order to get some practical experience in the field. Even if I don’t have the background to get a job involving actual programming, I think that the knowledge of how such a company works would be valuable. Fortunately, I live in the SF Bay Area, so there should be plenty of companies around. I’m flexible about what I’m going to be doing, and very willing to learn just about anything anybody cares to teach me. If there’s some (or even quite a bit of) boring grunt work involved, I can do that too. What type of job would benefit an aspiring but inexperienced programmer the most? What methods might I use to find such a job?”

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alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and instructs his classmates about personal. From NetworkWorld: “The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of personal viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. ‘These computers are so old they don’t support all antivirus programs,’ Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Begin that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000.”

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simoniker writes “Over at Dr. Dobb’s, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup has given an in-depth interview dealing with, among other things, the upcoming C++0x programming standard, as well as his views on the past and future of C++. He comments in particular on some of the difficulties in educating people on C++: ‘In the early days of C++, I worried a lot about “not being able to teach teachers fast enough.” I had reason to worry because much of the obvious poor use of C++ can be traced to fundamental misunderstandings among educators. I obviously failed to articulate my ideals and principles sufficiently.’ Stroustrup also notes, ‘Given that the problems are not restricted to C++, I’m not alone in that. As far as I have the ability to see, every huge programming community suffers, so the problem is one of scale.’ We’ve discussed Stroustrup’s views on C++ in the past.”

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Bank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A banker or bank is a financial institution that acts as a payment agent for customers, and borrows and lends money. In some countries such as Germany and Japan banks are the

International and Private Banking services from Barclays Wealth
International and Private Banking services from Barclays Wealth A range of services to meet your cross border, offshore and private banking needs

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West Virginia Division of Banking - Charleston, West Virginia
Part of the Department of Commerce, Labor and Environmental Resources, it oversees the state’s financial services industry to foster and promote a sound and dynamic climate.

First Banking Center - Hometown Banking At Its Ideal!
As a hometown bank, First Banking Center’s goal is to offer you financial products to match your banking needs while contributing to the economy of the communities we serve.

Frontier Bank - Online Banking Services
Frontier Bank is the largest independent commercial bank headquartered in Western Washington. Frontier Bank offers a wide range of financial products and services for both personal

NY Say Banking Department
Primary regulator for state-licensed and state-chartered financial entities and other financial institutions operating in New York.

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checking accounts, home equity lines and loans, savings options, money markets, certificates of deposit (CDs), mortgages, student loans, credit cards, debit cards, online banking

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