Shawn Fanning was an 18 year old from Cape Cod, attending Northeastern University. He, like many others, hated getting mp3s from crappy websites. His roommate at college would whine about not being able to download mp3s online. He began thinking. There must be a way to get music files without having to go to a website. He taught himself how to program in UNIX, so he figured his project could be possible. "I had this idea that there was a lot of material out there sitting on people's hard drives," he says. "I mean, even if you were at [search-engine websites like] Lycos or Scour, you were still looking at people's hard drives. So that's the idea, that there's all this stuff sitting on people's PCs--and I had to figure out a way to go and get it." (Taro, September 25, 2000) Fanning became obsessed with getting the project done. He wouldn’t be seen without his laptop, typing in code, trying to get it to work. “One January evening, as he rode back to campus with his cousin Brian Fanning, he was, as usual, totally absorbed with his idea.” ‘I'm like that. Once I begin focusing on something, I'll just keep going until it's done. I cut off the outside world.’ When the BMW pulled up to his red-brick dorm, Fanning absentmindedly got out of the car and began walking up the path. After two steps, he stopped. Brian, who was about to pull away, waited as Fanning turned around, strolled back to the car, opened the door and climbed back in. ‘I'm not going back to school,’ he told his cousin. Brian shrugged and drove off. It was Shawn's problem.” (Taro, September 25, 2000) Of course his parents were crushed by the news, and begged for him to go back to college, but Shawn said that the project was too important. Shawn moved into his Uncle, John Fanning’s office and began programming his first program ever, named after Fanning’s nappy hair, Napster. He stayed awake coding the program in a 60 hour coding binge. Little did he know his program would turn the entire world upside down. (Taro, September 25, 2000)