CONTRIBUTORS I'm the p2pnet.net founder and editor and as a freelance journalist, I've written for The Toronto Star, Canadian Business Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Wall Street Journal and the Reader's Digest, among many other publications; and, I've worked on a number of television productions. I'm also the former managing editor of Canada's Direct Access, a national newspaper for information technology specialists, editor of Computer Graduate, a national Canadian magazine, and electronics editor of Market News, a national Canadian trade publication.
I was also the author of OTRiCS (On The Road in CyberSpace) - one of the Net's most controversial web sites - and these days, I write an occasional column and weekly news briefs for MusicDish. (And please
email me if you think I might be able to do something for you.)
Born in London, England, I started out as an art student but turned to words when I discovered I wasn't likely to be a serious challenge to Picasso. In 1998 my wife, Liz, and I started selling antiques in Ontario, Canada. We want to be around full-time while our daughter, Emma, grows up.
I play blues and folk guitar. And computer... ;) I make my computer compositions manually on Dan McKee's excellent Winjammer software synthesizer (which is unfortunately no longer available) and Koan Pro. No MIDI, or other, input. Output is via a Roland sound card and recorded and mixed on Goldwave,and Multisequencer, two more excellent Canadian apps. My style ranges from Elizabethan-type melodies to acid jazz, with just about everything else in between. In my view, this is a new genre of music - not an attempt to mimic traditional sounds electronically.
Nikki does application reviews and write-ups, and designed the p2pnet.net pages. And she is, I'm afraid, another Brit. But that's just a
coincidence. Honest!
"I was into programming from the moment someone told me that it was possible to program a computer,
instead of just using it and having it work the way someone else wants," she says, going on:
"My programming has, until recently, been for personal use only. However, I found that when I started
sending some of my little programs out to friends, I got good feedback.
"Then I read an appeal for programmers from a group who were looking to build a program to
connect to the OpenNap network.
"So I am... hehe."
Nikki's orbł is currently in development and internal alpha testing. It's a free, open-source p2p file
sharing app which connects to any of the hundreds of independent OpenNap server networks so users can
search the collections of millions of other OpenNap users.
"You can share files and participate in chat rooms and instant messaging," says Nikki. "orbł aims to be
friendly to you as well as to the other users on the OpenNap networks and the networks themselves."
Matthew hails from New York City where he's currently studying law at St John's University with a
particular interest in copyright and entertainment law. A six-year veteran of the NYC music and film
industries, Matthew has worked primarily as a freelance music supervisor for film soundtracks, where he
has first-hand combat experience in how music companies leverage their copyrighted material.
"Having negotiated usage rights with the music industry for many years, I remain very interested in
their bitter, and often misguided, struggle to leverage their copyrights on the Internet. While I think
there's a solution to this problem that ultimately will satisfy everyone, the road to that solution is
proving to be extremely long and unpleasant."
An MBA from Rutgers University, Richard began his Internet career in 1995 when he joined Prentice
Hall New Media, the higher education division of Simon and Schuster. In early 1997, he developed the
Guest Lecture series, a pioneer effort in Internet video and audio content streaming for education. It
was during his research for that project that he first experimented with the mp3 format as an audio
delivery mechanism for music education courses.
Consequently, Rich became an early expert on streamed technology and was recognized as one of the top
media producers in the country by AV Video and Multimedia Magazine in 1998. That year, Rich founded MP3
Newswire, one of the first sites to chronicle the rise of the new digital music industry, focusing in
particular on the clash between old industry practices and new industry tactics, and what this all will
mean to the average music fan, now and in the future.
Gabriel Howard, 21, lives in a small community in Northeast Indiana with a population of some 5000 people.
"I love computers and music (this is a given ;) and have been involved with both for quite some time," he says. "One hobby of mine is to write music. The style involves elements of electronic music with orchestration/symphonic qualities. Although I can't read or write music paper, this is where the magic of computers comes in handy: it allows me to write my music note by note without having to know how to read/write music."
Gabriel's also into politics. "This is a big one for me," he says. "I try to get as involved as I can. Keeping up with world affairs and what's going on is very important to me. So there will probably be a political flair to what I write.
"I've had a strong interest in writing for a long time and because politics are melding together, I wanted to get involved with p2pnet.net."
There she was. Loaded to the gills on OTC downers. Sing? She could barely stand. But that was OK. Zola Moon was still at school. And this was her first performance not just in front of the other kids, but ever. "I was so nervous I took a bunch of my mother's sedatives to try to calm me down," she says. "Unfortunately, I took what turned out to be WAY too many. A real disaster. What the hell, the horn section was out of tune anyway."
That was 20 years ago and Zola - originally from the San Francisco Bay area - is still singing. But she's gone well beyond high school performances. She's now one of the most respected Blues singers not only around LA, her home, but also across the States. An amazing Blues harmonica player as well as a singer, she's appeared, or performed, with Albert Collins, Etta James, Elvin Bishop, Albert King, J.J. "Bad Boy" Jones, Big Mama Thornton, Al Kooper, William Clark, and Junior Wells, among a whole raft of others.
Zola will be doing writes when and if - and on Whatever. She's got a very tart sense of humour, so...
Sam Huff, who's writing about p2p apps for us, is in admin over at Unite The Cows. Online, he's Music Pirate and as such, has a really useful file sharing directory called P2PClients.
"In my spare time I started creating a website to help and educate people on spyware and p2p clients," he says.
His site not only has a great list of alternative p2p clients to KaZaA and FastTrack, but also other highly relevant stuff like p2p tools and add-ons.
Sam's passions are computers and hardware. Right now, he's still at school but eventually, he wants to be a network administrator.
The ultra quewl mini-pix I've used on the menu page and everywhere else in p2pnet.net were created by none other than Thomas Walter Murphy VII of Tombat/bot fame.
"I happen to think it is a pretty good name," he says on one of his web pages.
"I'm a recent graduate of Hamden (Connecticut) High School, and right now I'm kicking ass at Carnegie Mellon University (in the Computer Science department). During the summer I'm working (teaching classes and beating people in Quake) at the Eli Whitney Museum, (I am also sometimes webmaster at EWM; check out the page!) I also an amateur computer-game-programmer (see Mooseware and Ludus/Anathema), and an amateur Typographer (see [Divide By Zero] Fonts!)."
Interested in becoming a p2pnet.net contributor? Take a look here.
Matthew Abbott
Richard Menta
Zola Moon
(the pics are of Zola performing at the Playboy Jazz Festival).
p2pnet.net
