Friday, October 10, 2003
Win Some, Lose Some (But bluetooth sure is nice)
My Nokia 3650 randomly turned itself off for the 100th time so I decided I needed to take it in for repair. Cingular was kind enough to give me a shiny new one. I think its a new revision or something because now I can no longer synch with iSync. I can transfer files and surf the net without a hitch but if I go to add my phone to iSync it has no luck picking it up. I can't seem to find much on the net. No luck with a hard reset. I guess I'll just wait till a new version of bluetooth/isync comes along. I was really getting used to having everything all synched up.
But while I wait I can atleast enjoy the super cool new features that came along with the last apple update of the address book. Now my mac will tell me when I have an incoming call, complete with number/name lookup! Now if only they could add a call logging feature I would be all set. I am notoriously bad for charging for my time. Its amazing what you can pickup while reading other people's blogs.
While on the bluetooth-powerbook topic I have to say that surfing the net while your phone is still sitting snuggly in your pocket is all its cracked up to be. To kill time in the airport before a flight I like to suck down some news to read on the plane, bring all my cvs checkouts up todate, chat on im and irc, make sure none of my servers are going to take a dump while I'm in the air, and generally waste time mucking about on the 'net. I used to do this by attaching a usb cable to my samsung A500 but it was a complete pain. Where the cable plugged into the phone was flaky at best and everytime I shifted my position my connection would drop. I got pretty creative with wedging the cable and phone in the handle of my travel bags but it was still clusmy. Oh but now I just slide my slender powerbook from its case, flip it open, click connect and start surfing all in one suave movement. Within 15 seconds I'm on the the 'net. Sure I wouldn't mind the connection being a little faster but still for this 3mbit connection addict, its more than useable. Too bad Cingular doesn't have a flat rate for data like sprint.
But while I wait I can atleast enjoy the super cool new features that came along with the last apple update of the address book. Now my mac will tell me when I have an incoming call, complete with number/name lookup! Now if only they could add a call logging feature I would be all set. I am notoriously bad for charging for my time. Its amazing what you can pickup while reading other people's blogs.
While on the bluetooth-powerbook topic I have to say that surfing the net while your phone is still sitting snuggly in your pocket is all its cracked up to be. To kill time in the airport before a flight I like to suck down some news to read on the plane, bring all my cvs checkouts up todate, chat on im and irc, make sure none of my servers are going to take a dump while I'm in the air, and generally waste time mucking about on the 'net. I used to do this by attaching a usb cable to my samsung A500 but it was a complete pain. Where the cable plugged into the phone was flaky at best and everytime I shifted my position my connection would drop. I got pretty creative with wedging the cable and phone in the handle of my travel bags but it was still clusmy. Oh but now I just slide my slender powerbook from its case, flip it open, click connect and start surfing all in one suave movement. Within 15 seconds I'm on the the 'net. Sure I wouldn't mind the connection being a little faster but still for this 3mbit connection addict, its more than useable. Too bad Cingular doesn't have a flat rate for data like sprint.
DMCA is a four letter word....
I've been rather dormant for the last couple of weeks (traveling, work pressure, gotta pay rent, yada yada yada....) but this little article snapped me out of my coma long enough for a quick rant. If you haven't kept up with DMCA saga this might come as a surprise, but NEWSFLASH: it may be illegal to hold down your shift key! :)
For quite some time now companies have been working on a way to keep these bloody theiving pirates (also known as "fans") from "ripping" audio from CDs and converting them to mp3s. Its proved a massive challenge to walk the fine line of breaking cds so they won't work in computers but will still work in people's expensive HiFi's.
Well one of the most recent incarnations of this rediculous technology is "MediaMax C3" concocted by SunnComm. They thought it would be smashing good idea to use the auto-run feature (yes, you read that correctly autorun) to install a driver that would prevent you from reading the cd. Um duh? So it didn't take long for some bright lad at princeton to point out that the emporer had no clothes on. I've seen some retarded ideas before but using auto-run to implement copy protection? Yowza. When I was still stuck in the windows world (its been almost 5 years now since i thought windows nt was a good idea) the very first thing I would do to any machine was kill auto-run. I hate stuff popping up without my direct summons. Any tech that has to fix desktops for a living has probaby figured out that holding shift down disables auto-run (No I don't want to see the *&#*@ splash screen, I just want the &*( driver. I don't care that you have an expensive graphic designer, your software still sucks.) So "circumventing" MediaMax's slick copy protection "technology" is as simple as holding down shift while you insert the cd.
Oh but just add a little DMCA to the action and it gets interesting. DMCA has this cute little circumvention clause:
So it was not terribly surprising that, in light of their market value taking a $10million dip, SunnComm made rumblings about suing the "erroneous" little student. Luckily someone in the company figured out that, given how crappy their software really was, that they were probably better off hiding under a table.
This completely baffles me. As a child of the 80's, a Columbia House and BMG survivor, and fairly avid music collector, I have spent more money purchasing cds and vinyl than I have any of my cars. Instead of spending so much time combatting piracy maybe the industry should think about giving fans a reason to buy music. Spending upwards of $20 for a cd that will only play in one player out of the 3 I use regularly is not my idea of a money well spent. How about spending a little less money promoting overproduced crap boy band music and searching out a few more talented musicians? yeash.
For quite some time now companies have been working on a way to keep these bloody theiving pirates (also known as "fans") from "ripping" audio from CDs and converting them to mp3s. Its proved a massive challenge to walk the fine line of breaking cds so they won't work in computers but will still work in people's expensive HiFi's.
Well one of the most recent incarnations of this rediculous technology is "MediaMax C3" concocted by SunnComm. They thought it would be smashing good idea to use the auto-run feature (yes, you read that correctly autorun) to install a driver that would prevent you from reading the cd. Um duh? So it didn't take long for some bright lad at princeton to point out that the emporer had no clothes on. I've seen some retarded ideas before but using auto-run to implement copy protection? Yowza. When I was still stuck in the windows world (its been almost 5 years now since i thought windows nt was a good idea) the very first thing I would do to any machine was kill auto-run. I hate stuff popping up without my direct summons. Any tech that has to fix desktops for a living has probaby figured out that holding shift down disables auto-run (No I don't want to see the *&#*@ splash screen, I just want the &*( driver. I don't care that you have an expensive graphic designer, your software still sucks.) So "circumventing" MediaMax's slick copy protection "technology" is as simple as holding down shift while you insert the cd.
Oh but just add a little DMCA to the action and it gets interesting. DMCA has this cute little circumvention clause:
No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any
technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that ... `circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure' means avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure;
So it was not terribly surprising that, in light of their market value taking a $10million dip, SunnComm made rumblings about suing the "erroneous" little student. Luckily someone in the company figured out that, given how crappy their software really was, that they were probably better off hiding under a table.
"I don't want to be the guy that creates any kind of chilling effect on research." - SunnComm CEO Peter Jacobs
This completely baffles me. As a child of the 80's, a Columbia House and BMG survivor, and fairly avid music collector, I have spent more money purchasing cds and vinyl than I have any of my cars. Instead of spending so much time combatting piracy maybe the industry should think about giving fans a reason to buy music. Spending upwards of $20 for a cd that will only play in one player out of the 3 I use regularly is not my idea of a money well spent. How about spending a little less money promoting overproduced crap boy band music and searching out a few more talented musicians? yeash.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
On the road
Had to switch coasts for work last week so I didn't get a chance to post any new goodies. I was very happy to find that on both the flights I had the good luck of getting an Airbus with laptop power at every seat. It figures that as soon as I get a second battery for the long flight that I wouldn't need it. Anyways, cudos to usair for only charging $198 for a coast to coast round trip flight, and giving me a power jack on top of that. :)
There is an interesting article over at The Register dealing with the Unix vs Windows virus debate. I've been trying to dispell the "if Unix (Linux and MacOS X) had more users then it would have just as bad of a virus problem as windows" myth for a long time now. Its nice to see my position broken down and layed out.
There is an interesting article over at The Register dealing with the Unix vs Windows virus debate. I've been trying to dispell the "if Unix (Linux and MacOS X) had more users then it would have just as bad of a virus problem as windows" myth for a long time now. Its nice to see my position broken down and layed out.
