According to Cory Doctorow’s
latest article in the Guardian, copyright holders (like the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) are lobbying in governments here and abroad to force
ISPs to pull the plug on customers who are “caught” transmitting or receiving illegal copyrighted material. That much isn’t necessarily a bad idea. After all, frequent violators may be proving that they don’t “deserve the privilege” of accessing the Internet. What really catches in his craw (and mine) is that they don’t want to have to prove anything. That’s right. The burden of proving their accusations is far too great, but they still feel like the “3 accusations and you’re out policy” is a good one. Never mind that they recently accused a laser printer of downloading the newest Indiana Jones movie. Surely everyone should just take their accusations as pure truth. Doctorow feels like we should hold copyright holders similarly accountable: 3 false accusations and they should have their copyright enforcing privileges on the Internet revoked.
(0)
23rd Jun 2008
I kind of fell back in love with reading during my year off from school. I started around Christmas of 2006 and actually got quite a few books read before school started this past Fall. Unfortunately, as you might expect I don’t have a lot of time for leisure reading. Actually, I say that, but it’s a complete lie. Really, I do have time for it, and I just don’t allocate my free time towards it even though I should.
Well regardless, I am going to allocate some time for reading this summer finally. I’ve got a whole bunch of books on my shelf that I’m itching to get ahold of. Here are the ones I’m hoping to crack open:
Wish me luck! See something you think I should be reading? Let me know! I figured if I list them here, I’ll be more likely to make headway on them.
I found
this old post on Dive Into Mark about why he chose WordPress to run his blog. I started reading his blog regularly a few weeks ago, and I really like it. That post gives a concrete example of why the
GPL rocks: because it gives
you, the user, all the rights.
(0)
15th Jun 2008
Apparently my blog has taken a turn for the worse 
. I guess my content hasn’t been very interesting over the past few months or something. I should have time to work on better stuff this summer hopefully. If you’re reading this and have any suggestions on new stuff I could write about or stuff I should stop writing about, let me know.
Lawrence Lessig gave
a great speech at the National Conference for Media Reform a few days ago. It was a very insightful look at the way our government runs and how we can address its problems. He uses a bunch of great examples. It’s kind of long (~30 minutes), but take the time to watch the whole thing. There is a particularly good part somewhere around 23:00-26:00. The speech was kicking off a project he’s working on called
Change Congress. Now that’s
change I can believe in.
(0)
So check
this out. There’s a new(ish) plug-in for The
GIMP that allows you to do some pretty awesome stuff when resizing photos. You can ignore the guy talking if you want and just watch. The GIMP is kind of like Adobe Photoshop, if you’re not familiar with GNU-linux.
(0)
5th Jun 2008
In my hurry to finish Monday’s post on Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, I failed to fully grasp the announcement of Dell’s new “mini-Inspiron” netbook/UMPC/MID/subnotebook/whathaveyou. It’s going to ship running the new Ubuntu software (or WinXP) by the end of the month. We’re talking about a main-stream, awesome subnotebook that a ton of people already want (including me), and it’s going to be running Ubuntu. This is going to be huge for the Ubuntu community right off the bat. Bravo, Mr. Shuttleworth. If Apple can get people to use Macs by creating nifty iPods and iPhones, I think Ubuntu can get people to use Linux by creating killer subnotebooks. These new Dells look amazing with a 9″ widescreen, 8-in-1 card reader, webcam, direct media playback buttons, and the Intel Atom. All that for under $500? I only hope they have wireless N and an SSD hard drive option. If they do, these notebooks will quickly take the industry by storm. In fact, with the impending release of Intel’s Atom, Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix, and Dell’s mini-Inspiron, it seems like the perfect storm’s a-brewin’, and I’m loving every minute of it! It seems like the only thing that could affect the forecast is a little bit of Wind. Eeek!
4th Jun 2008
Have you ever wanted to take Firefox with you to another computer that doesn’t have it installed? Ever needed to chat on a computer that doesn’t have an instant messaging client installed? Do you have a flash drive? If so, PortableApps may very well be for you [hat tip Srinu]. PortableApps is a free/open-source application that turns your flash drive into a sort of portable computer. It lets you bring all your favorite applications to a new computer. This means you can save your Firefox bookmarks and plug-ins and bring them with you. In fact, you can carry a lot of open-source software with you wherever you go. This includes games, any instant messaging service (via Pidgin), and even a CD/DVD burning program. This is a great piece of software for students who are constantly using public computers where you can’t install applications yourself.
Rush users actually have quite a bit of use for this. You can browse with Firefox despite the fact that the IT department refuses to allow it on any university computers. Another little-known fact is that Firefox can bypass BlueCoat, the firewall that RUMC uses to block unwanted traffic to sites like MySpace and YouTube. Don’t get too excited, though. They know about this and they’ll have it fixed soon. Still, I feel like PortableApps is an essential tool for people who want to carry their preferred open-source software with them to be used on any Windows machine. Download it today!
3rd Jun 2008
As was expected, Ubuntu announced a new version of its operating system specifically targeted toward netbooks [via Engadget]. This is following the success of OLPC XO laptop in bringing about subnotebooks such as the now famous Asus Eee PC and a number of followers including the HP MiniNote, Elonex ONE, Everex Cloudbook, MSI Wind, the newly announced Dell mini-Inspiron, and many more. A subnotebook is meant to be an extremely small, inexpensive, ultra-lightweight portable computer that is geared towards people who simply want to be able to carry around a computer to browse the internet, check email, compose documents, and play simple games. They’re not meant to replace a desktop computer or more full-featured laptop, but they focus on ultra-portability. Many of these subnotebooks have featured Linux-based operating systems to keep costs down and promote ease of use, but now it seems like nearly all of them offer a more expensive Windows XP option. With the success of the Intel Atom processor, it appears as though this genre of computer will continue to grow in the future and many manufacturers are trying to get in on it.
One of the main criticisms of the Linux-based operating systems used on these notebooks (besides the fact that some people just want nothing to do with Linux) is that the Linux distros being used have been lacking some functionality. Enter Ubuntu, a.k.a. “Linux for Human Beings“. Canonical’s announcement of a light-weight, full-featured version of Ubuntu that can be incorporated for free into any of these sub-notebooks has got to be good news for manufacturers. With companies like Dell already incorporating Ubuntu-loaded products into their lineup, it is only a matter of time before Ubuntu becomes an even more accessible operating system alternative to MS Windows and Mac OS.
There are just a few points that I’ll mention here where I think Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, is making particularly good decisions. First, they’re optimizing their release for Intel’s Atom processors via the Moblin project (Mobile Linux Internet). The Atom processor was designed to be used in subnotebooks and mobile internet devices (MIDs) so that you can have good processing power with little power consumption (long battery life). In other words, I think it’s good that Canonical’s focused on creating a custom operating system specifically for the hardware that it will be used on. This will make it an ideal choice for the new and old devices using Atom.
Canonical also appears to be working with ISVs to make sure that a lot of software will be available on this platform. This could mean an increase in software (and hardware) portability to the Linux platform. It’s also great that they’re giving preference to hardware with open-source drivers available. This will give preference to Intel, who has open-sourced their video and wireless drivers, while excluding companies like Broadcom and nVidia who insist that their hardware stay closed-source. Considering how much this subnotebook field could grow over the next year or two, this could pressure these closed-source companies into change their tune. This would be fantastic for the Linux community.
I look forward to hearing a lot more about this in the near future.
A lot of Linux users hate the fact that most PC computer vendors only offer computers with MS Windows installed. They never plan on using Windows, and it sucks to pay $50-200 for something you don’t need or want (affectionately known as the “Windows tax”). A major reason for this is the
horrendous Windows EULA (you know you don’t own that copy of Windows you paid for, right?). Fortunately for them, the Windows EULA specifically states that if you do not agree to its terms and conditions, you are eligible for a refund. It seems as though
some users are taking advantage of this [via Linux.com].
(0)
![[FSF Associate Member #6540]](http://encephalosponge.com/wp-content/themes/encephalosponge/images/fsf.png){kind=small}
