I'm surprised this hasn't been getting more press. After doing some reading around to make sure it was actually legit, I couldn't resist the temptation of sub-$1(!!!) downloadable albums of pretty much any mainstream music that's out there. (Oddly, I actually ran across it while trying to track down some info about a slightly less mainstream (but still RIAA-affiliated) artist.)

I know I'm an total junky, but this is sweet! After paypal-ing them $20 (the minimum allowed increment), I've downloaded an entire album of music, plus a super extended Britney Spears "Breathe On Me" remix (go on, laugh as hard as you want), and I've still used less than $1 of my credits.

The downloads were quick. Plenty of bandwidth to fill the pipe I'm on.

As for legality, it looks to be legit, at least until somebody is a position to alter the law decides otherwise.

Psychologically, it feels a bit wierd to be paying in pennies for music. It's like an unnatural cross between paying in dollars to "legit" sources (no guilty conscience, unless you count misgivings about supporting the RIAA), and just grabbing whatever I can find via p2p (guilt about getting something for nothing). I've done both before of course, but experiencing these opposing sensations simultaniously is mentally confusing.

Oh well. I guess I'll just go with it.

As for the Oracle project, I got things importing, in a fashion. Mostly. I decided it would be worthwhile to run out and buy a copy of Oracle in a Nutshell in the hopes that might give me some hints, and help me feel a little less lost. It worked.

I convinced it to allow me to import the dump file, using a method that felt akin to setting off a nuclear detonator to go rabbit hunting. And I quote:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES TO testuser;

After that, it stopped giving me trouble.

But when I went to try to get the java web app code working, another pile of crap of a different sort was waiting for me. I got it running in Tomcat easily enough, but when I tried loading the thing up in a web browser, there was nothing there to actually do anything, except to let the server fall back on a directory index display. The deployment descriptor's servlet mapping code was lacking something, to say the least.

Ugggh. Hunting around the directories didn't reveal much, except for some odd looking little html pages, a lot of java class files, jars, and other stuff you'd generally expect to find in a web application. But nothing to tie it together. I'm still not even sure what this thing is supposed to do when it works.

So now I'm procrastinating on contacting the appropriate people, and trying to think how I might translate "WTF?" into something more diplomatic.

It's looking more and more like this thing has "quagmire" written all over it. Now I almost wish I hadn't allowed myself to be drawn into this thing, even if it does mean some money.

Oh well. Things will turn out, one way or another.