What ever happened to the community.

So today i created an account on ubuntuforums.org and something sparked my interest. I reallized how strongly regarded the sense of community was in this online forum. A sort of unity between all of the members and the cooperation between them for the better good. In these forums, you can go and ask simple questions, and you can discuss possible solutions to such problems with people who just might be more knowledgable than you about any one subject. Now, mind you, this is forum for Ubuntu Linux, a computer operating system, and the majority of these exchanges are computer related, But i made a sort of contrast with the music industry while exploring this newly joined community.
From what ive gathered, the music industry is nothing at all like a community. Everyone has their own agenda, and they will do whatever they can to achieve their goals. This sort of cut-throat attitude becomes a problem when the sense of unity is destroyed by it. Now, i have been in and out of bands for about 5 years now, and i have experienced quite a bit, not the most, but i have seen some things, good and bad.
I do see how some similar bands do stick together, play shows, share fans and such. Hell, i was there, ive made friends and played numerous shows with them. One situation that comes to mind was back when my old band played with Anomaly all those times (hell, i eventually joined the band), we met, became friends, stayed in touch somewhat, and played a few shows together and it was all good. We were both really small bands, but we kinda helped each other out.
I do notice where competition does get in the way of community. Especially now in the new age of the internet and the social networking revolution, all i see are bands that just want to get famous by any means possible (now where have i heard that before). But if you know anything about history, "by any means possible" never works. So its almost as if something needs to be done.
I have been thinking about this all day, and ive come to the conclusion that there should be some sort of online comunity for musicians. A place where they can go and exchange resources, collaborate on projects, and work for the betterment of the community. We already know my views on the music industry, but i think that by building something like this, it might help to make the situation better.
So that is my idea, it seems to be a great idea to me. I have no idea what other musicians might think about it. I just think that by borrowing on the ideals of community that has been so heavily emphasized in the open source world, that it can be used for the betterment of a different form of creative expression, because seriously, computers and music may be two different things, but the ways of creating both of them requires creativity and a willingness for progress.

You know you're a computer nerd when...

...you spend your weekend helping your friend install Linux.

Yea, thats right, that would make me a computer nerd. Does this worry me? No, that's who i am.
But i do feel it is necessary that people understand how to use computers. Maybe it is the nerd within me that is saying this, or maybe it is the truth.
I have been working in jobs in one form of tech support or another. I had my job at my high school where my responsibility was to fix just about any sort of problem with people's computers. The thing about this job was that it was quite easy now that i look back on it. The reason for this is because i always had something to fall back on, I could always just re-image a computer and that would be the magic solution, but, the problem with that was that more people were saving their personal stuff on the local drive of the computer. This caused me to have to look for different ways to fix problems. This is where i learned the most. At least, until my job at RCC.
My job at RCC is just wonderful, I get to go and fix people's computers, and they love me for it. It does have its downside thought. There are the times where people have such a bad problem that they need to have Windows reinstalled, or a hard drive crashes and they lose some big important project that they didnt back up. I really do hate when i have to tell people that they just lost everything due to the imperfect nature of some computers.
But this brings me to my main point. The fact that i think that more poeple should at least try to learn more than they know about computers.
Computers have been around for the past 30 years or so, and since then, they have rapidly advanced to the point where they can simplify a large majority of people's lives, but only if they knew how to do it.
This is how I use computers to my advantage.
I no longer need any form of newspaper thanks to both my rss reader and digg.com. These are the two ways I can get the news that I am interested in, and filter out what i dont care about.
In order to keep in touch with people, i of course have an aim screen name, who doesn't? But who uses AOL's shitty aim program to use their aim? Thanks to the world of open-source development, i am able to enjoy the social benefits of aim, but i am also able to stay away from all the shit that is packaged with the AOL software. This is the beauty of Pidgin (and Adium on my mac). If i am making plans for the future, such as a possible party, or something i need to do, i use the power of the almighty Google to keep track of my daily events including my work schedule, and my classes as well. This gives me a visual representation of what i am doing during the day, and it can even send me a text message to remind me to go do something.
Now that i am on the subject of text messaging, I wonder how many people know how amazing and powerful Google SMS is. Check it out, it has saved me in times of hunger.
How why do people not actively look for these types of technological time savers? I havent figured that out yet. It could possibly be from the lack of motivation, or just the ability to be able to make due with what you have without a computer. But, what i see living on a college campus, (just about) everyone has a computer and all those services are out there for the discovering.
I dont know, it just seems strange to me when i go on appointments and people tell me that all they use their computer for is aim, facebook, word, and the internet. There is so much more to discover.
So i shall try to make a good list of links of stuff that i use to help use technology to make life more productive.

• Digg - a great social news site, by making an account, you can vote on news stories that you like and possibly make them popular
• Last.fm - a wonderful music networking site, think of it as a mix of facebook with music, you use their software to keep track of the music you listen to, and then you can make friends online based on your musical compatibility (which is calculated for you). And dont forget to add me as a friend!!
  
• Google Calendar - the online calendar program i use, very nice clean interface, some alternatives to this are Sunbird, the Mozilla Calendar Project, and iCal for those mac users
• Google SMS - I covered this earlier, its great to get quick results when you arent by a computer
• Google Reader - subscribe to online feeds with this, you can stay up to date on blogs (like mine!) and other news sites.
• Lifehacker - a great site that has a slew of great tricks and techniques to use technology to make your life more productive

There, i hope that maybe someone will come across this and use it to some sort of benifit in making the world more technological. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you realize that it is not your entire world. Computers are a convenience, not something to be completely reliant on.