Ubuntu Hardy Heron: Beyond the Hype and into the Dilemma

Bruce Byfield has written a pretty good review of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron's place in the market. He concentrates mainly on the tension between "free" software and proprietary extensions. For those of you who have wondered exactly what that argument is about, this is for you. Byfield lays it all out succinctly and accurately.

I'm an Ubuntu fan. I'm a Linux and free software advocate. There are problems in paradise, though, and Byfield has laid them out in an easy to understand form. Well worth your time.

Jack

Review: PsyStar OpenComputer

The link above will take you to a short review at OS News.com and here is CNet's take on one of the machines offered.

I think it is safe to say that the company is trying to pull this off. It is not a scam. However, I will still excercise and preach caution as it might be easy for PsyStar to either get swamped under the demand or crushed by Apple's lawyers, whether temporarily or permanently.

Jack

The ABCs of securing your wireless network

Ars Technica gives you the basics. If you haven't, or even if you have secured your wireless router, you might want to read this article.

Man gets prison after hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails - Boston.com

One down, infinite number left to go.

XP SP3 not generally available yet, after all | All about Microsoft | ZDNet.com

"Microsoft has decided not to release Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3 to Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center as planned on April 29. The reason? A last-minute compatibility issue with a Microsoft application — Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS)."
I guess we have to wait a little longer for XP SP3.

Joe

Getting to Know the Nabaztag Internet Rabbit

You can tell by my nick that I have something of an attachment to rabbits, though I won't go into that here.

I have looked at the Nabaztag rabbit for a while now, but have given up on most articles about it because they are simply too dense. Mac Tidbits has finally reviewed it right.

Jack

Psystar delivers Hackintosh

That the company is delivering small numbers (and there is only evidence for a very few deliveries, yet) does not make this a wise investment. However; PsyStar is headed in the direction of proving themselves worthy of our money. Let's see how they do before sending off checks, though.

ALL early reports are very good.

Jack

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 04-27-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 04-27-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.
Remember the pictures from Geek Meet 2008 are up, you can click here to see them.

Links from the Gregg zone

1) Well, we are going to start the week green, I ran across this site following a link about green gasoline. A very promising breakthrough announced earlier this month April 7, in the magazine Chemistry & Sustainability a publication in the biomass field. Link to the article here http://www.nextenergynews.com it seems they have found a new process for handling stuff like switchgrass, cottonwood, woodchips, cornhusks, and the like into green gasoline. The process is cheap and produces a product almost exactly like gasoline, even can be used as jet fuel. The carbon footprint for the process is almost zero, and produces electricity as a by-product to the process. The other thing I like about this site is an extensive amount of videos concerning everything from electric cars and alt. fuels, to geothermal and wind power. A very interesting site, you should not miss this one if the subject interest you.

2) This is along the same line, here is a video I looked up due to a reference on the Jay Leno show, actually, there are several of them here, but this one caught me because you can do it today. Leno commented that he uses zero gas to commute back and forth to work. His Prius hybrid prototype uses only electric power for the first forty miles, his commute is twenty, he plugs it in when he gets to work. Later I saw an interview with a couple of guys who have an add-on conversion kit to boost the Prius hybrid up to 100+ mpg. That got me googling the conversion cost is currently about three thousand dollars installed in one day, which will come down. It can be reversed to the point you can use it on a lease car, remove it and they will not be able to detect it was ever there. http://www.youtube.com

3) This is a link to a short article I ran across I thought some of you might be interested in. Seems that Sony one of the most vocal music piracy companies, is being sued by a small software company for using pirated software in Sony computers. An ironic twist if there is any thing to it. http://www.news.com.

4) However, that previous story link is nothing compared to one Jack sent me about a Rupert Murdoch firm going on trial for tech sabotage. This one reads like a spy novel, the cast of characters include hired hackers, former intelligence agents, Canadians, TV pirates, Bulgarian and German hackers, a UK-Israeli firm, the Israel domestic security agency, a research lab in Haifa, would-be terrorist Yossi Tsuria, code breakers, people disappearing only to be found hanging in the park, I mean this sounds more like a TV movie than a trial over TV smart cards. http://www.wired.com

5) To wrap it up for the week another link sent to me by Jack about one of my favorite things, duct tape. I cannot begin to recall one tenth of the times duct tape has saved my day. I think it is one of the greatest inventions of all time, at least for the handy-person around the house. I had no idea that it was used on the moon to save the day for the Lunar-Lander. What I found most surprising was the comment about it being under the seat in the space ship, I thought the weight factor would have prohibited any such thing. You just have to read this; it will win a beer at the local pub trivia contest every time. http://science.nasa.gov

Between black and white: the state of grayware on the PC

An interesting article at Ars Technica. Well worth your time.

A listener wrote in with a series of related questions after last week's show and I'm actually doing something of an investigative bent to answer then and present what I find on the show, either next week or the week after that.

There is an awful lot of deception in software. Especially in freeware supposed to enhance security. Bundled toolbars with absolutely no notice to the user is probably the most common fault. But there are too many to count. Really.

At any rate; this is a pretty good and fairly concise overview of the problem.

Jack

Microsoft Takes Back the Music

Well, we've been wondering when this would happen. MS is not the first to lock subscribers out of legally purchased music files and they surely won't be the last.

The sub-header on the article reads "choose piracy" and, frankly, while I am not advocating that at all, it looks more and more attractive.

Jack

This Week's QuickTime Zero-Day Hits Windows XP, Vista

This should have been posted yesterday, but I missed it. I'm sorry for that.

It is, I think, time to say that friends don't let friends use QuickTime.

Jack

A Reasonable Successor to CAPTCHA?

The page explains how it works and allows you to try it out.

With the completely automated cracking of CAPTCHA images an accomplished fact, we are in desperate need of a successor to tell the bots and the humans apart. This one seems to do it, and without changing everything in the world to get it up and working. Check it out.

Jack

"Single Core Systems are History"

It's not like most of you haven't already figured this out and I hope I'm not being somehow offensive by posting something so glaringly obvious and proposing you read it. It's really nice to see it all in one place, though. The arguably best reason for pointing you to this is so you can bookmark it to show to those who really don't get it when you encounter them.

Jack

Geek Meet 2008 Pictures are posted

Sorry for the delay, but the pictures from Geek Meet 2008 are now posted at http://geekmeet.oncomputers.info.

Thanks to all that came out.

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 04-20-08

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 04-20-08. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. Join us for the live show and chat. If you prefer, you can download the same MP3 file here via ftp.

There is a minute or so gap when I lost my internet connection about 2 ½ hours into the show.
AlaskaJoe

RSA Conference 2008 - Keynote Webcast Schedule

I thought that some might enjoy access to the conference video or "interactive webcast," from this past week's RSA conference available. Sadly, no audio only...


RSA Conference 2008 - Keynote Webcast Schedule
--MissM

Links from the Gregg zone

1) My first couple of links today are going to be a little on the dark side. I have always been, intrigued by the question. What makes humans, my-self included do the things we do? It is amazing to me to watch people acting in ways that I find completely incomprehensible. From world leaders, to the people living next door, I often find my-self running away from that old saying, “if everyone else seems crazy, maybe it’s you”. Anyway, I thought I would post a couple of links about psychological tests I ran across during my net surfing; they were controversial when first conducted; and could not be done today due to ethics. However, they are enlightening when you look at some of the actions of the people around us. http://www.youtube.com

2) The second link is similar to the first one another experiment done a few years later at Stanford College, this is in three parts. They do reference the last link here, but they carry it a little further. This experiment ended early, but it was incredibly interesting how supposedly normal people can morph into roles that go against their basic nature. I wonder how bad it would have become had they went the full two-weeks. http://www.youtube.com/

3) These next links also delve into the workings of our brain, body, and consciousness. The first link is to an article, I ran across in the Daily Mail about a hypnotist who put himself under for an 83 min. operation on his arm to have a bone growth chiseled off, using a hammer and chisel after cutting him open, no anesthetic. http://www.dailymail.co.uk I have used self-hypnosis in the past. Not to this degree, but the article got me to look around to see what is available on the net, because I did enjoy the experience. Here is some of what I found. My first thought was an old friend, Mind Tools. http://www.mindtools.com Then I found this one a free online five-day audio course, I am thinking about it if I can make time I think I will try it. http://www.hypnosisdownloads.com

4) It’s time to lighten things up a bit, this link was sent to me by Jack, thanks. What we have here is a list of the “Ten Genius Inventions We’re Still Waiting For” put together by Popular Mechanics Magazine. Some future inventions here, but I can probably wait for most of them. http://www.popularmechanics.com

5) Last up a geek link, I have heard some negativity about Safari on the show off and on, so when I saw this I thought I would link it up. It seems PayPal is blocking it as an unsafe browser, and does not live up to their standard. Older versions of some other browsers will also be blocked, so if you are having problems an upgrade might help. http://www.thestandard.com

Blind users still struggle with 'maddening' computing obstacles

We, and especially Riley, have commented on this for years. Here is a succinct summary of the problems encountered by blind users, along with some information on remediation and tools available.

I was recently asked to re-write a web site to increase usability for the visually challenged. I had to turn it down. Why? Well, most of us who do HTML and derivatives never thought about the blind and so we did our sites in such a way that simply inserting "ALT" tags would do nothing to improve accessibility. Sites need to be designed for accessibility from the start. Once that is done, improving accessibility is really not that much work and surely not inconvenient beyond the needed labor. The site I was being asked to work on really needed to be completely redone, not just tarted up for the blind. Too big a job for the likes of me.

Jack

Firefox 2.0.0.14 released April 16th

Just a bug fix, no new features.
Quote from the release notes :
Fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.14
MFSA 2008-20 Crash in JavaScript garbage collector

Interesting though, when you go into the full details, they say the bug is fixed in Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 as well, but no update showing up there, yet. Still 2.0.0.12 showing for latest download.