Verizon Wireless Ringtone - Cell phones started out as simple devices to perform basic calling functions. But now they have evolved tons of frills such as built-in video games, specialized background pictures, switchable faceplates, and customizable ringtones.

A ringtone version of your new favorite song is a way to add personality to technology. You can make your phone ring in a unique way that's just the way you like it. This isn't just for fun - if several phones ring at the same time, having a customized sound can alert you to when your phone is ringing.

A ringtone is simply a computer program stored on the cell phone's memory chip. This program's purpose is to tell the microprocessor what the phone's speaker system should do when an incoming call is detected.

Ringtone-capable phones already have a range of notes stored in memory. The ringtone program only has to tell the microprocessor which of these notes to play, in which order and at what speed. By adjusting these variables, the microprocessor can play an infinite number of sounds.

In order to enable a ringtone on your phone, you just have to get the appropriate program into the phone's memory. It's actually pretty easy to do this.

The first step in adding a ringtone to your phone is finding one you like. This means checking out one of the dozens of ringtone sites on the Internet and picking a good one that's compatible with your phone model. Some sites charge for the use of their ringtones, to cover song royalties, among other things, and some sites provide tones for free.

History Of Milli Vanilli - Does anyone remember Milli Vanilli? The act was formed by Frank Farian in Germany, 1988. The front actors were Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The actual singers were Charles Shaw, John Davis, Brad Howell, and Jodie and Linda Rocco. Farian thought the singers were not marketable, so he recruited the two younger, photogenic models Fab and Rob. The name Milli Vanilli was taken from an advertising slogan.

During a live performance in July 1989, at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut, the recording of the song "Girl You Know It's True" began to skip. The line "Girl, you know it's" began to repeat over and over. Fans attending the concert didn't seem to notice or even care, but critics did notice and questioned Rob and Fab in their concert reviews. That was pretty much the end. A huge scandal followed, including lawsuits, and the loss of Milli Vanilli's Grammy.

Blame It on the Rain

This was their last Billboard Hot 100 number one hit before the scandal broke out. Here's the video:

WinMX runs on the Windows operating system and is used as a peer to peer (P2P) file sharing system. Although the original developer dropped support in 2005, a community of programmers picked up the service and brought it back online.

WinMX, if properly configured, can share almost any type of file. Files over 2GB will not be shared, and must be split into chunks smaller than 2GB. Although there is no limit to the number of files a user can share on the network, when a list of a specific user's files is requested (by the browse function) only a limited amount will be shown. However, all the shared files will be visible to a general search by filename.

Limewire Basic is a good way to tell if you want to join the P2P community. It has enough features to get a good test. Installation is pretty easy. If you like it, you can upgrade to Limewire Pro and get additional features.

Limewire was loaded with spyware a few versions ago, but now it seems that all the spyware junk is gone. The free version of Limewire is limited to 200 hits, including duplicates.

Installing Limewire Basic is fairly straightforward. You'll have to get past a bunch of skull and crossbones warnings about the perils of P2P. The only thing that's loaded is the program and Java runtime environment. If you decide to uninstall Limewire, there will be some Java files left behind, and the Java runtime environment will also remain.

Limewire Basic intentionally limits the number of files found during searches. This (of course) was done to get you to purchase Limewire Pro. The interface is fairly easy to use and ads are pretty low key.

Limewire serves as a media librarian for your PC. It displays music by artist, title, and other tags. The program also previews and plays music files and uses Windows Media Player to show video. It has a connection monitor where you can monitor incoming searches of your shared folder, as well as track files being uploaded from you by others. Limewire can also launch pages in a browser other than Internet Explorer.

Downloading music has greatly increased due to portable MP3 players such as the iPod. It's a good way to get only the tunes you want without having to buy an entire CD. But there are legal aspects that you need to be aware of.

The creation of legal music downloads came about because of complaints from artists and musicians. They argued that they owned their music, and it therefore should not be available for free downloading. They have a valid point. Besides the time and energy that goes into producing music, there are distribution and marketing costs involved. Musicians and recording companies rightfully expect to be compensated.

As a result, music download websites began popping up online. iTunes and Napster are two popular services. iTunes charges a nominal fee per song, while Napster charges a monthly subscription fee. There are also more than a hundred of sites that offer music downloads.

You can find legal music downloads in several ways. It is advisable that you go through reputable and well known sites. Shop around the 'net, ask friends for recommendations. Be sure to deal only with reputable sites. You don't want to run afoul of copyright laws.

Here's a list of some music download sites:

In a typical peer-to-peer (P2P) network, there is no central server. All machines are interconnected and are considered equal access nodes. The purpose of this arrangement is the sharing of files.

Some P2P networks use a central server for certain tasks, and peer-to-peer for others. There are several advantages to this, including speed. However, most P2P networks have no central server and are considered true P2P.

Peer-to-peer networks can be classified by what they can be used for:

• file sharing

• video and audio media

• discussion forums

One of the goals of P2P is that all clients provide bandwidth, storage space, and computing power. As new machines are connected and demand increases, the total capacity of the system also increases. The distributed nature of true peer-to-peer networks means that there is no single point of failure. This increases reliability and allows the network to continue operating in case one or several nodes go offline.

Although the temptation is to download your music for free, you will most likely violate copyright law by doing so. The penalties can be harsh. Recently, the recording industry has been cracking down by filing lawsuits against people that download music illegally.

Why take the risk? There are a lot of sites on the Internet that sell music online for a very small fee. And it's legal. You can purchase by the song, or buy a monthly membership. Either way, there is no need to risk legal action just to save a few bucks.

Free music is surprisingly easy to come by, even music by famous bands. Sometimes you can only listen to a song while you're online, but with the ever-growing popularity of broadband this is really no longer a problem. Sites provide free online music by almost any band you can think of. However, most people want to download songs and burn their own customized CDs. So how do we do that without violating copyright law?

The best way to avoid problems is to visit sites that sell music for a fee. Some will charge by the song, while others charge a monthly subscription. The correct choice depends on your preferences. If you plan to download a lot of music on a regular basis, the subscription route is the way to go. However, if you only pull enough songs to burn a couple of CDs and don't plan to do this often, then try the by-the-song approach.