OpenTech

Stop SOPA / PIPA

2012-01-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

For some time, the copyright abuse industries (primarily music and movies, but also newspaper and book publishers), have been plying politicians with campaign cash. Their objective has been to force everyone to continue paying them large sums of money. I haven't the time to find and link some of the stories of takedown notices against videos of toddlers dancing because of the music that was in the background or attempting to collect fees against auto repair shops if the music in the repair bays is audible in customer areas.

Recently, many in the technology fields noticed that PIPA (Protect IP Act) and its twin SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) included some requirements that would completely break the Internet as we know it.

I ask you, if you are a US citizen who is old enough to vote, to register and to contact your elected officials (your two senators and one representative, as well as the President) and urge them to prevent this from passing. Please remember to vote against anyone who supports these bills.

Thank you.

Spam Lives, But Not Here

2010-04-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Due to increasing numbers of spam comments, I will probably turn comments off for a while.

I do this in my free time, which is increasingly small. I'd rather not waste it trying to figure out whether somebody's comment is relevant to the posting to which it is attached.

Blogger / Blogspot Falling Farther Behind

2010-04-06T02:16:00.001-07:00

This was the first place I blogged. I was originally impressed with the ease with which I could log into the site, type in some text, and publish an entry. Then I added a second blog, this one at Wordpress.com, and I wasn't so impressed anymore.

Wordpress.com has its ever-improving reporting tools that really make a big difference. No one else can match Wordpress.com's dashboard or the breadth and depth of their statistics. Where others leave you wondering whether anyone is reading your stuff, Wordpress.com makes it simple to check.

Wordpress.com had a super-awesome editing tool, too. (The current iteration isn't as good, but it still outmatches the one for this site.)

Now, to be sure, Typepad.com has a decent dashboard with decent statistics. But it seems scatterbrained and hard to use. Typepad also has a pretty good post editor. And Xanga is only slightly behind Typepad.com on any measure: dashboard organization, statistics, editing tool. Xanga adds a social networking orientation, including "friending" of other members.

LiveJournal and Vox, on the other hand, are dashboard-poor. Everything is in different places, with no clear path from point A to point B. Their editors aren't bad, but neither one gives much in the way of statistics. Both LJ and Vox are also social network enabled. Vox uses "neighborhoods" to enable easy formation of collections of interesting members' content.

However, since I've added the last three or four sites, I've discovered a new aggravation with Blogspot: comments. When someone comments here, I have to make the effort to find and view the associated posting, so I can check it for relevance. Then, I'm not ever sure that the expander enabled me to see the entire comment (and switching back and forth from tab to tab in order to read article with comment is not much fun). WP.com's comments system doesn't make it easy to compare the two, either. But I am sure that I'm reading the full comment.

Perhaps Blogger / Blogspot is another business that was ignored once it was purchased by "bigG", the way that Jaiku, Orkut, and Dodgeball appear to have been.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

NetPBM Your E-Mail Address

2010-03-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

pbmtext --builtin fixed "youremail" | pnmtopng >outfile.png

NetPBM is a toolkit that creates and manipulates graphic images. One use for some of the tools is to slow down e-mail harvesters that search sites looking for mailto: links and user@domain entries.

You could, for example, wish to post yourname@example.com on a website, but not wish to have tons of "male enhancement" messages. Having installed Netpbm onto your computer (with any of various Unix-based systems, Windows, Mac OS X, VMS or Amiga OS), using a command line like that above would yield a PNG file consisting of a graphic version of your e-mail address.

Use the PNG file instead of text or a link. Some, but not all, harvesting software will pass over the address without collecting it. Of course, if you are insecure about your manhood, maybe you should just let them get your address. You might get a great deal on ...

Designers: Stop Being Stupid!

2010-02-23T20:23:00.001-08:00

I was using Identi.ca and noticed that when I click on links, they open in the original window & tab. That's okay if you aren't logged in, but it is dead wrong if a logged in user is directed away from the site while logged in.

Now, my day job is mostly deskside support. I'm the one who is always reminding computer users to log out (if you logged in) before you leave a site. We have to drill that into people's heads, and idiotic designers think it is more important to avoid opening a new tab than it is to help users prevent their credential from being compromised.

There are a few things I hear about "user experience". First of all, "it should be the user's choice" to open in a new tab. That might be true, if users had a clue about securing their login credentials. Most users haven't a clue about how to open something in a new tab on their own. It is up to the website to help them avoid walking away while still logged in.

Think that's not a problem? Here's the smell test. Go to your nearby public library, sit down at one of their computers, and type in www.hotmail.com. Now whose mail are you reading? That's someone that logged into a site in a public library and walked away without logging out. You can go from computer to computer, testing out Hotmail, Yahoo mail, Gmail, and so on. On most computers, you'll find that at least one of these sites has someone logged in.

If you don't want to open a new page, then take the user to a "landing page" where they can be warned that they are leaving your site. If they click "okay", log the user out and send him or her on his or her way.

The next "UX" claim I hear is "isn't it better to teach them how to use computers properly?" Yes it is, but I can't be there with every person who uses a computer to navigate the Web. A recent article about AOL accepting Facebook logins got dozens or even hundreds of comments from people who wondered why they couldn't log in. Why? Because they don't understand the concept behind the address bar.

I remember when I upgraded some computers from IE6 to IE7. One person called me, saying that she couldn't access the Internet. When I went over there, she was on Microsoft's then-current search engine, Live.com. The upgrade had changed her home page (and search page) from Google to Live.com, and she didn't know how to get to any of "her" sites without Google's assistance. This is not uncommon. This is the bulk of today's Internet users, and you'd better get used to it.

Remember, the person who logs into your site is probably using the same username and password on Yahoo, Google, and their bank. If the password is compromised because of your stubborn and stupid insistence on opening links in the same window without logging the user out first, you are partly at fault for any loss--maybe not in a legal sense, but morally.

Thunderbird 3: Mozilla's Mail Client Needs Help Now

2010-02-23T19:52:00.001-08:00

Thunderbird in 2010 @ david ascher

In parallel with some exciting innovations in add-ons, we’ll be pursuing more gradual change strategies within Thunderbird 3 itself.

Thunderbird 3.0 is getting security & bugfix releases (3.0.1 is out, 3.0.2 is coming soon).

Thunderbird 3.1 is also underway. We’ve already released the first alpha, and a first beta is getting defined. It will be focused on a couple of areas:

* Making the upgrade from Thunderbird 2 as painless as possible: Some of the features that we introduced in 3.0 were confusing to Thunderbird 2 users, and some of the defaults which we think made sense to new users were quite surprising to long-term Thunderbird users. We’re reviewing the upgrade process and making sure that users get to opt-in to the more radical changes. We realize it can be quite unpleasant to have your software change unexpectedly.
* Improving some of the new features in Thunderbird 3: The feedback for the new features has been both positive and constructive — look for refinements on the concepts introduced in Thunderbird 3.

I am glad to hear about Mozilla Messaging's plans to improve Thunderbird. However, I don't think MM is listening to its user base. TB3 has all the things that were wrong about TB2, only multiplied. Let's talk about some things that might make Thunderbird a go-to mail client.

First of all, TBird has one major competitor and several minor ones. Outlook is the major competitor, and while Outlook is a horrid, controlling piece of garbage (speaking as someone who supports Outlook / Exchange users and seeing how difficult it is to bend Outlook to their purposes), TBird will need to replicate its functionality and improve upon it if Mozilla wants TBird to gain traction in a Windows-based business environment. That means seamless integration with office tools (that is, Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office, and StarOffice / OpenOffice), the ability to easily integrate with Active Directory (and any LDAP-based directory service), and to integrate with Exchange (as well as standard IMAP / POP / SMTP servers).

I don't have an AD domain where I can test TBird, but I haven't heard anyone saying that TBird+Lightning is an easy drop-in replacement for Outlook yet.

Calendaring:

I like Lightning. But Lightning is still just an add-on. It needs better integration with TBird. It needs to be part and parcel of TBird, so that anyone that gets TBird will have Lightning already. Mozilla should be working with Google, Yahoo, Apple, OSAF, and other calendaring providers to ensure that TBird + Lightning (and Sunbird, their stand-alone calendar client) is a first-class member of the calendaring server's ecosystem.

So for instance, I currently have accounts with Google, Yahoo and Hotmail, all of whom come with calendars. I also have a Chandler Hub account. It should be easy for me to enter an event and send it to whichever of these online calendars I choose, as long as the provider accepts external clients. I haven't tried in a while (on my Linux machines, I'm still running TBird 2.x, and I haven't set up calendaring on Windows, where the 3.x installation is).

My Palm Pre does calendaring with Google and Yahoo. I entered my credentials once, and I can read e-mail, send e-mail, read my calendars, and update my calendars.

E-mail:

Setup is a major hassle, with TBird 2 or TBird 3. I don't think MozMessaging quite understands why someone uses a mail client instead of a Web-based interface. I use a mail client because I have several e-mail accounts for different purposes, and I don't want the hassle of going from one to another on the Web (or opening five different tabs in my browser if I want to stay connected to e-mail). That is, I want to use five separate e-mail accounts without having them bleed over into one another.

So why is it that I have to set up my incoming accounts, then for each account after the first one, go back and do an outgoing account and then go back to the corresponding incoming account and tell it which outgoing account to use? Are the folks at Mozilla Messaging not listening to their users? Certainly there are situations where one outgoing account can and should serve multiple incoming accounts, but that is mostly where you have custservice@example.com as an incoming address and you want to respond from your.name@example.com. In most other circumstances, you don't want to give out additional e-mail addresses to someone. So how hard is it to have a reasonable default, with a (default unchecked) checkbox that allows using an already-set-up outgoing account?

Here's another thing about e-mail setup: chances are, I want to read my e-mail from multiple computers. This means that TBird should prefer IMAP over POP. It can still download copies for offline reading, but if the server has the option, messages should be stored on the server (and expunged when users empty their trash).

Message composition should default to unicode (UTF-8 encoded) plain text, but have a checkbox in the compose window that turns on HTML mode. There is no reason why users should have to choose one or the other permanently.

Now, we've talked about all of this before. They weren't listening then. They aren't listening now. That was why I tried Kmail, Evolution, Sylpheed, and Claws Mail. Claws Mail comes closest to doing what I want as far as e-mail goes, but it has no support for outgoing HTML mail at all. And their calendaring plug-in isn't very good.

Instant messaging, microblogging, etc:

It isn't a requirement (at least not yet), but a good Jabber / XMPP / Google Talk, Yahoo IM, MS Live IM, AIM client and StatusNet / Twitter / Jaiku / Plurk client would be a good add-on to a mail client. Like any other such clients, I want something that stays out of my way and doesn't distract me from doing something productive with my time. I want something that doesn't consume all my CPU and RAM (so no Adobe AIR clients, such as Twhirl, need apply).

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IceRocket tags: Mail Clients, Mozilla

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Another Reason Why I Want Windows Out Of My Life

2010-02-12T12:36:00.001-08:00

Windows, Windows, Windows.

I've got a Linux machine that has a photo printer attached. This machine uses DHCP, and this is intentional, since I don't want to be bothered with having to set up a bunch of static IP addresses. Anyway, this isn't the machine that is the print server. This is a different machine, where one person uses digiKam and Gimp to edit photos for printing and uploading.

Now, there are two Windows XP Home Edition computers that this person also uses. Both of these computers have some photos on them, which the individual wishes to print using the abovementioned printer.

No problem. Turn on sharing and then set up a printer on the Windows machines, right? Not quite. The Windows machines can be set to print to the IP address which is in use at the time of setup. But unless I'm willing to fix the Linux machine to one particular IP address, they lose the printer when we shut down the "server" and if it receives a different address upon rebooting, they don't pick it up. (Now, with XP Pro, there is a setting that says, use this printer even if its IP address changes. I haven't seen this with XP Home. Maybe it doesn't work with IPP printing.)

Now, the other Linux and Mac computers all see this shared photo printer, and can print to it. When the address changes, they detect that and maintain a connection to its current address. Who thought of a supposedly modern OS that doesn't have CUPS compatible IPP printing built into it?

Mini? SteveB? Y'all need to fix that in your next OS version.

Suggesting Some Fixes the Palm Pre

2010-01-06T16:41:00.001-08:00

Unlike most consumers, I chose a Palm Pre over either an iPhone or a Droid because, well, I liked the hardware/phone package. A physical keyboard and affordable monthly plan matter more to me than access to thousands of apps. I know Palm will most likely always lag behind in available applications; but really, how many am I likely to use regularly on a handheld? A couple of dozen?

There's still much I like about my new Pre, from its sleek design to its multi-tasking webOS. However, there are some fixes I wish they'd get cracking on.

10 Fixes the Palm Pre Needs Right Now - PC World

I recommend reading the full article. I have the Pre, and I like it. I took a good look at the iPhone before I got the Pre, and the Pre is simply a better phone and a better Internet (Web / e-mail) client than the iPhone. On top of that, the iPhone is only available on AT&T's network, with all the terrible reception and lack of coverage that goes with said network. (I think it is a combination of not enough towers or backhaul capacity and a deadly weakness in the GSM technology behind that network.)

I love my Pre, but I am not blind to its weaknesses. First of all, the battery life is too short. Even though recent WebOS updates have helped with that issue, the design of the phone should have included a higher-capacity battery--and the phone should have come with a spare, the way the Samsung Instinct does--and an easy-to-open back.

Secondly, Palm practically invented the PDA market (ignoring Apple's Newton). Since WebOS is replacing PalmOS in all future Palm devices, they really should have made the new operating system a fully-capable replacement for all the tasks that the old one performed. I am really impressed with the way that the Pre connects all the dots with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and now Yahoo accounts, so that e-mail addresses, IM names, and calendar items come across to the phone. But this is still too limited.

For example, I have calendars on Chandler Hub, on a separate iCalendar-compatible site, on Microsoft Live, and on Google and Yahoo. I currently do not use them much, because I find it too difficult to synchronize them. (My employer's Exchange server does not count, because I am not going to connect my phone to it anyway, even if it was allowed.) I would be likely to actually use the calendar system, once I could integrate everything and use them all seamlessly together from one device.

Palm is also experienced with their own desktop software. They could have packaged a Windows/Mac OSX/Linux client on CD with the phone, and this would have avoided the cat and mouse game they played with Apple over accessing iTunes. If they didn't want to devote the resources to developing their own, they could easily have partnered with the makers of DoubleTwist (perhaps some added resources would have gotten DoubleTwist to go on and develop a Linux version, too).

Third, I'm not an app fanatic. I use Twitter app, a couple of game apps, a weather app, and a "find local businesses" app. But I might be more interested in apps when there is a music-sync app, or when the Pre supports video recording and VOIP, especially if it also supported the open formats (Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, Matroska, Speex, Flac) that I use at home.

Fourth, another reason I use so few apps is that Palm does not yet accept PayPal or Google Checkout as ways to purchase apps. Anyone that uses the Web should quickly establish a policy of not using one's credit cards directly, but only through two or three trusted payment intermediaries. If store.example.com's database is somehow compromised, why should I have to call my bank and sign up for credit watch services? I'm not expecting Palm's database to be accessed, but I have already made up my mind. I want to pay through PayPal or Checkout, not directly through my credit card. This would really be a good move if buy-online-and-click-download-link apps become available, as some are requesting.

Having said all this, there isn't a lot of chance that I'm going to switch phones any time soon. Like the rest of the country, I think Droid and the new Google Nexus One are cool, but I won't throw out my Pre for them. I do, however, have a Verizon prepaid phone for the in-the-process-of-starting business. If Droid shows me that it can meet my needs there, I'll probably switch us from prepaid phones to a VZW plan in the next year.

IceRocket tags: Palm Pre

Technorati tags: Palm Pre

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Google DNS: A Challenge To ISPs and OpenDNS

2009-12-04T12:38:00.001-08:00

Google Public DNS

Why does DNS matter?

The DNS protocol is an important part of the web's infrastructure, serving as the Internet's phone book: every time you visit a website, your computer performs a DNS lookup. Complex pages often require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading, so your computer may be performing hundreds of lookups a day.

Why should you try Google Public DNS?

By using Google Public DNS you can:

* Speed up your browsing experience.
* Improve your security.
* Get the results you expect with absolutely no redirection.

I saw the announcement last night. This morning, I thought about my experiences with Verizon's DNS servers and with OpenDNS. Specifically, both providers regularly divert me away from sites that I frequently use to a page search page full of advertising. In the case of OpenDNS, I know that is the way they support themselves. But it is inexcusable for Verizon to put its paying customers benefit behind the revenue it gets by diverting to a Yahoo search page.

I have decided to try out Google DNS. If it doesn't work out the way I hope, I can switch back to Verizon or to OpenDNS without much effort.

I think this is a challenge to those who would pollute the DNS system for their own gain (and the hindrance of their users and customers). ISPs, such as Verizon and Comcast, could find that diversion-related revenue declines if very many people start relying upon Google for their DNS services. This is also an opportunity for companies like Cisco / Linksys, because a router that automatically uses Google first (and then forwards any 'not found" queries to OpenDNS or the ISP's DNS could be a marketing point to gain share from competitors.

IceRocket tags: Google DNS

Google DNS

GPL-ism Spreading Through Open Source Universe

2009-12-02T14:31:00.001-08:00

WordPress › Blog » Themes are GPL, too

In conclusion, the WordPress themes supplied contain elements that are derivative of WordPress’s copyrighted code. These themes, being collections of distinct works (images, CSS files, PHP files), need not be GPL-licensed as a whole. Rather, the PHP files are subject to the requirements of the GPL while the images and CSS are not. Third-party developers of such themes may apply restrictive copyrights to these elements if they wish.

Finally, we note that it might be possible to design a valid WordPress theme that avoids the factors that subject it to WordPress’s copyright, but such a theme would have to forgo almost all the WordPress functionality that makes the software useful.

In the last couple of years, I've noticed that Open Source Matters (the Joomla! project), Drupal, and now WordPress are starting to recognize that they need to be clear about following the obligations of the licenses they use. In all three cases, the project is focusing their distribution resources on extensions, plugins, or themes that fit with the project's own licensing. This is important, I feel.

Not that I wish to deny any developer the opportunity to make money with Joomla!, Drupal, or WordPress. But there is more to the GPL than zero-price software. In fact, the GPL definitely allows one to sell the covered application, or to sell products and services built around that application. Drupal has Acquia. WordPress has WordPress.com. I'm not aware of a Joomla-sponsoring commercial enterprise, but I would not be adverse to there being one.

No, living by the license is not just about dollars, yen, and euros. Living by the license is about ensuring that those who obtain a product composed with code that is covered by the license are able to take advantage of all the benefits that the license guarantees. To lock up GPL code within a commercially-licensed product is much like a state or city deciding to restrict free speech. Even though the federal Constitution requires freedom of speech, states and localities could render that freedom moot if they were allowed to enforce their own restrictions. Same with the right to bear arms (and no, I am not a gun nut): if a local restriction that overrides the federal freedom is enforced, the freedom is hollow, being freedom in name only.

Indeed, I find it encouraging that these projects are starting to take their licenses seriously.

Now if only Joomla! would fix their OpenID implementation. Rather than using OpenID simply to allow random posters onto a site from across the Internet, use it as a way to enable regular site members to have an option to use already-familiar login credentials. Somehow, I do not think they are listening. That's why one of my three or four remaining Joomla!-powered sites is switching to MODx in the next few days. (Drupal gets it right. Joomla!, please fix this, and SOON.) I'm also hoping to see Elxis and MODx starting to think about the implications of their licenses soon.

IceRocket tags: Content Management Systems, GPL

Content Management Systems, GPL

Flock 2.5

2009-11-17T16:46:00.000-08:00

I have periodically used the Flock browser, primarily because of it blog posting tool. Flock, for those who do not know it, is a social-networking-enhanced offshoot of Mozilla's Firefox. Flock, for example, would probably appeal to your teen--MySpace, Facebook, and similar sites are built in--as well as to you.

Flock was the first browser I ever found with Twitter and Pownce integration. And unlike Twitter clients built upon Adobe AIR, Flock's CPU and RAM consumption is not a problem.

Flock, as I have mentioned, has a built-in blog editor. It is really cool for most postings, because you have simple formatting buttons and you are also able (if you really want to try it) to edit the underlying HTML. Like most blog editors, it has its own ideas about formatting and about which tags to use (e.g., <i> vs <em>), but for most of us, we care about getting the content written and looking acceptable and posted. Flock is ideal for this, and this is why I have used it.

But suddenly, with version 2.5, using Flock to post to a blog results in an error message and multiple posts. Categories are wrong, and pinging services like Technorati and IceRocket is also broken. And there is no longer anywhere to set up trackbacks. Flock is headed for the bit bucket on my current laptop, at least until there is an update that fixes the problem. (By the way, I understand why companies use GetSatisfaction and similar services, but if your users / customers have to sign up to tell you that you messed up, most of us won't bother. Instead, we'll just download Wyzo or Songbird and see whether either of those products meet our needs. And, yes, I did notice that the issue was reported three months ago already. Please don't tell me you could not reproduce it, because it took me all of two minutes to get the exact same thing the other person described.)

I don't do the MySpace / Facebook thing, so I have no other reason to use Flock (TTYtter is a superb Twitter client, and Choquok is great for Identi.ca, so Flock isn't going to make it up there).

Distro Dancing

2009-11-11T17:13:00.001-08:00

Right on the heels of switching over the print server to a wierd kind of desktop laptop computer ("notebook" form factor, but not clamshelled, instead of an integrated keyboard, there is a hinged stalk where the built-in monitor attaches to the body), my real laptop finally died.

Now, I had plenty of advance warning, so I bought a replacement last Summer. Both the old and the new lappies are Dell models, and both run (or ran) Linux instead of Windows. (As I always say, "Linux opens doors. No more broken Windows.") But the new one contains a Broadcom wireless card. (Boo! Hiss!) The bc43 driver project doesn't have this card working yet. Yes, there is another way: see here. I just don't want to manually recompile modules each time there is a kernel upgrade.

Now, I could try and obtain the Windows driver and use ndiswrapper, but if I'm going to do that, I may as well dump Windows back onto the laptop and give it to my nephew for school use. I'm sure that one of Dell's pre-installed Linux machines will have all the advantages without most of the disadvantages of this one. I started this one out with Xubuntu 9.04. The main problem was the non-working sound (which I was eventually able to make work, even though it mutes every time at startup), which was enough to make me return to Linux Mint. However, Gloria (Mint 7) was at the same place sound-wise as my repair of Xubuntu, while it also couldn't use the wireless card. I know that Helena (Mint 8) is on its way, but I'm not eager to spend a month carting my lappy to the kitchen so I can plug it into the router while I wait for the new version. As a result, I installed Mandriva Free 2010--only to find that it, too, stumbles over the WiFi card. So this lappy will probably go back to Xubuntu (now at version 9.10) in a few days. I might try out PCLinuxOS first. I've heard so much about this distro from Helios that I would really like to try it.

I do want to point out that my desktop is still in the Ubuntu family, currently Xubuntu, since my switch from Fedora a couple of years ago. The lappy is more important, since it goes with me when I head to places like New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Nebraska, and Missouri.

Unbootable? Replace It

2009-11-06T18:56:00.001-08:00

I have not found a solution to this one.

I have an old HP desktop, purchased about 7 years ago. I long ago wiped WinXP off of it in favor of Linux. I was running Gentoo's 2008.1 version, until the hard drive crashed. Now I need to give you some history. I originally installed the old RH8, because anything newer had problems. I eventually found a Mandriva Free version that would install--but it had only 128 MiB of RAM, so their KDE-based GUI was so slow as to be unusable. I then tried Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, and Mepis. In each case, GRUB could not boot after installation. Finally, I tried Gentoo, where I was able to use LILO, which worked well.

Fast-forward to the past couple of weeks. After working in Missouri for seven months, I come home to find my print server's hard drive has crashed. I had another EIDE drive, so I just put it in and started to install. If you've ever installed Gentoo, you know that you don't just throw in a CD and come back in an hour. You follow a long and detailed step-by-step process that lasts hours or even days (640 MiB made it much faster now than it used to be). Before you get to the first reboot, you install a boot loader. Knowing that GRUB doesn't play well with a lot of older hardware (I had other computers that were unbootable with GRUB but worked with LILO) I made sure to install LILO, as usual. Only this time, the reboot wasn't successful.

Turns out that the hard drive is /dev/hda during installation, but /dev/sda once you go to boot the system. LILO doesn't allow setting itself for that situation, and GRUB requires you to get into a shell (sometimes inaccessible once it caroms off, looking for now-nonexistent drives and partitions). So I am stripping it down for disposal now. I realize that I could fix it if I fiddled around enough, but what happens when the next kernel update is installed? Am I going to have to redo it?

Update: 2009-NOV-06 I decided that it wasn't worth it to try and keep the 2002-vintage machine in use. OfficeMax or Office Depot or "office whatever" had a sale on a Windows Vista computer because Windows 7 was coming out the next day, so my new "print server" has more than double the RAM, a faster, dual-core AMD processor, and the weirdest form factor I've ever seen. It only has to last until next Summer, because I'm planning on building a couple of computers then.

Because I no longer needed LILO to boot the computer, it now runs Xubuntu 9.10 x86_64. Best of all, setting up CUPS the way I wanted was much easier and quicker. The LaserJet 1018 printer is now shared with every computer (MJ's Mac required a long and difficult configuration, because it wanted to print thumbnails instead of full pages, but getting foo2zjs directly from the site (and the correct PPD file, together with Ghostscript and Foomatic) works well. Of course, the first step is to install the development tools off the setup DVD. Nothing works if you don't do that. I now officially hate Mac printer setup. Every time I do it, it takes as much time as setting up the Linux and Windows computers combined.)

As for the HP, it will join two other computers (dating back to 1997 and earlier) at my town's electronics waste collection site tomorrow.

Users, Developers Agree: GPL Best Software License

2009-07-27T00:43:00.001-07:00

Why Apache is not the bottom of the open source incline | Open Source | ZDNet.com

Any code you write is proprietary to you. No matter its license, you feel a proprietary interest in it. You may want contributions from others, but you also want protection for your rights as an author. You don’t want someone going around behind your back and turning your open source code proprietary with a tweak here and some marketing there. You want your interest in improvements protected.

If this is your attitude, an attitude both common and natural, then you will likely prefer the GPL to Apache licensing. Under the GPL your interest in getting improvements is protected. The power of others to fork your code and turn it to their profit is limited.

In a short post, Dana Blankenhorn explains why GPL-licensed software is just the thing for users, even if it isn't exactly right for large corporations.

Matt Mullenweg explains it this way:

Not Lonely at All — Matt Mullenweg

It’s user freedom that the GPL was created to protect, just like the Bill of Rights was created to protect the people, not the President. The GPL introduces checks and balances into an incredibly imbalanced power dynamic, that between a developer and his/her product’s users. The only thing the GPL says you can’t do is take away the rights of your users in your work or something derived from a GPL project, that the user rights are unalienable. You are free to do pretty much whatever you want as long as it does not infringe on the freedoms of others. (Sound familiar?)

That’s what software freedom means to me, and it’s something I believe in strongly enough to fight for and defend even when it’s not the easy or popular thing to do. (Especially this weekend as we celebrate the original “fork” of the US from from England.)

Personally, I seek out and prefer GPLv3 and GPLv2 software before "less-restrictive" open source licenses, and will generally only buy / use proprietary software if there is nothing else available. This is a choice I make because I am a user of software who is very concerned about the intrusiveness and anti-user orientation of EULA-licensed software. One example is "Genuine Disadvantage", whereby Microsoft inspects your computer each time you start it to see whether your software licensing is valid. Another example is software that loses functionality after a license period expires, such as the antivirus that comes preinstalled on your new laptop.

I think that many in the open source movement like it because the development model tends to result in rapid improvement and in rapid fixing of bugs and security holes. In that case, concern for users and their rights ("free software" is really about the freedoms of the users, not the freedoms of the developers, nor the price) is a secondary motivation if it factors in at all. That is great, as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough to advance the rights and interests of the user.

I encourage you to go and read both of the above. (ZDNet is ad-supported, so by visiting you help ensure that Dana can continue writing.) I hope you will do more, though. Start specifying and requiring and buying and using GPL-licensed software whenever you can. Always, when the alternatives are commecially-licensed.

IceRocket: software licensing

Software Licensing

Ditching Amarok 2, Going Back To 1.4

2009-07-19T13:19:00.001-07:00

When I upgraded to the 9.04 version of the Ubuntu family of operating systems, there were some immediately apparent problems. Notably, sound no longer worked on any Ubuntu / Kubuntu / Xubuntu system I upgraded. After some gymnastics, audio mostly works. There are random issues with it, but I am again able to listen to my favorite podcasts, such as Geeks and God and Industry Misinterpretations.

Well, I should say that I am able to listen now that I've reverted back to Amarok 1.4 and dumped version 2. What was wrong with Amarok 2? Let me list some things that are wrong with it:

No audio. For most things I attempted to listen to over the past few months, I wound up using Listen Music Player because Amarok just would not work. Changing Phonon to use Xine as the backend partially solves that problem. For some reason, the Gstreamer backend is unable to communicate properly with the sound system. At this point, I was unsure whether the remaining audio problems were Ubuntu and PulseAudio or KDE and Amarok.

Not as easy to change the podcast download & storage area to ~/Podcasts. I wound up having to create a symbolic link from ~/Podcasts to the hidden, too-long default directory path, ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/podcasts. I use other media players too, and I want them all to use the same directories for file storage. Unfortunately, they all re-download a podcast episode that was previously downloaded by another player. Perhaps the feed should contain a hash (MD5/SHA1) of each episode, so that players can determine when an episode is already downloaded and ready to be added to the database.

The interface is filled with unwanted garbage. For example, the center pane kept reverting to showing me every file I had attempted to listen to. No amount of changing settings would stop this until a recent update replaced this very annoying "feature" with another (less annoying, but still not useful to me) display.

Amarok 2 was constantly throwing up this "dynamic playlist" thing at me. If I wanted someone else to decide what I want, I don't need a media player. Radio stations do that already. Well, media player X does this. Good for them. Make it an easily-selected option, perhaps using Pandora as the selector / source.

Amarok 2 is in your face, whining and clinging and getting in the way, hindering you from. If you've had a 3 year-old around the house when he or she felt sick, you know what I mean. I cannot imagine why the team behind Amarok intentionally did this.

It feels awful, because Amarok was one of two applications that I used to show people who were considering a transition from the slavery of Windows to the freedom of Linux. (The other was digiKam, another KDE application that has similar problems in KDE4.) It was so easy to download a podcast episode, to play it, to access your music collection--far easier than fussing with Windows Media Player--plus it can use music in the Ogg format, which neither Windows Media Player nor Apple Quicktime can do.

Someone decided to hide the controllability that made the software usable in the first place. I like simple interfaces, but those interfaces must allow one to easily surface "intermediate" and "advanced" functionality when desired. That's one of the mistakes that the GNOME environment has made. Look at how much more functional and usable the KDE 3.5 versions of AmaroK and digiKam are as compared to software like F-spot. I'd like the KDE 4 versions to be equally functional and usable, even if their interfaces never return to the former configuration. Don't decide for me! Choose a sensible default, and then make it easily possible to change it if the default turns out to be wrong. KDE used to know this, and that is one reason why the KDE environment has always been the better of the two, even with its beefier memory and CPU requirements.

Instructions for switching back to version 1.4 are here.

IceRocket tags: Amarok, Ubuntu

AmaroK, Ubuntu

Interest Waning In iPhone? Buy A Pre Instead.

2009-06-20T19:23:00.001-07:00

IPhone fever drops a notch as 3G S debuts - Los Angeles Times

"It's a device that does everything in my life," said Vartan Nadjaryan, who already has an iPhone but still showed up at an AT&T store in Glendale at 3:30 a.m. Friday to be among the first to get his hands on the latest incarnation of Apple Inc.'s popular touch-screen device, the iPhone 3G S.

...

Since introducing the original iPhone in 2007, Apple has snagged a significant chunk of the market for smartphones, a category of high-end cellphones that also lets users take pictures, play videos, access the Internet or play games. Last year, the Cupertino, Calif., company sold 13.7 million iPhones worldwide, capturing 8.4% of the smartphone market, said Tina Teng, an analyst with research firm iSuppli Corp. in El Segundo.

But while throngs of people lined up for hours for the first- and second-generation iPhones, Friday's launch of the iPhone 3G S was relatively subdued. At the AT&T store where Nadjaryan went, about 15 customers were waiting when the store opened at 7 a.m. But a mile away at the Apple store in the Glendale Galleria, about 200 had shown up by the same time.

As the owner of a Palm Pre, I understand the hunger. Still, I think the 3GS is roughly equal to the Instinct I traded for the Pre. The iPhone is still not expandable, still only runs on the inferior AT&T network (in the US), and still only runs apps approved by Apple. It has a very active Appstore; its connection with iTunes gives it a sure connection with music and other media buyers; (two things that were lacking on the Instinct) but it is as controlled by Apple as any former Soviet hostage nation was.

The Pre's App Catalog has a much smaller number of applications, although the number is growing. Thanks to the "Classic" emulator, the Pre can run many legacy Palm OS apps, a pretty large number. The apps are mostly beta versions right now, and therefore zero-price. But some of them are already worth buying--Tweed (a Twitter client), AccuWeather, and The Sporting News Baseball app are all professional quality software--this, of course, was lacking on the Instinct. There was no central repository for third-party applications.

But I think the thing that the Pre has that is making iPhone users drool is its multitasking "cards" interface. (The iPhone's BSD-based OSX very likely retains multitasking in the core, but support at the user level is lacking.) The keyboard is a great improvement over on-screen keyboards, but it would be even better if it were bigger. Possibly it could slide out of the side of the next model of the phone.

The Pre isn't perfect by any means, as any honest user will admit (same for the iPhone--I played with it before I got the Instinct--the Instinct was a better phone and the Pre is even better). For example, if I shut off the Bluetooth (from the top right corner) and then get a call, I am consistently unable to reactivate it during the call. The green in-a-call app refuses to yield the foreground when I touch the top right to reactivate Bluetooth. But if Bluetooth is already active, it works great. My previous phones lacked even the ability to temporarily shut down Bluetooth when convenient, so this is a big improvement already. I am currently downloading WebOS 1.03, so this may have already been resolved.

I love having IM and text messaging open while I'm also checking my e-mail, tweeting, watching an approaching storm, and tracking the Dodgers as they stomp their opponents. Having all of them open and being able to switch between them at will is mega-awesome! If you're looking for a smartphone, look at the Pre before you look at anything else. I think you'll find no reason to continue looking for a phone.

IceRocket: Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS

Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS

Pre-Mania: The Phone Is So Good, It Was Worth It

2009-06-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

Background:
Over the past couple of years, I finally left Cingular / AT&T and their spotty and inferior coverage. With my current employment, I travel to different parts of the country and work for a few months at a time. In every location I worked, with the exception of New Jersey, AT&T's coverage was lacking. Each place, I'd call their support line, where someone would tell me the same thing: "We know we have a problem in that area, but we intend to add more towers in [name of area] later this year."

I went with a service called Helio. Helio was an awesome thing. They run on the Sprint network, so coverage was excellent. For instance, in the San Diego area, around the corner from UCSD, I had perfect coverage (except for the grounds of the hotel, which was in a little bowl-shaped depression). The same great coverage was true in Columbus, Ohio, and in Nebraska (both in Lincoln and in tiny towns with names like Schuyler and Kearney). But Helio's financial state put communication in jeopardy, so I added a Sprint phone, the Instinct. Being on the same Sprint network, I got the same great coverage.

Now, Helio's big thing is media & data functionality. My original plan was to get the Ocean, but the store where I got the phones was out of Oceans and offering a deal on the FIN. I had intended that I would upgrade to the Ocean "in a few months". But then something happened. Apple introduced the iPhone (with features that exceeded those of Helio's products and service) and Helio promised a version 2 of the Ocean that would catch up and pass the iPhone. But then came Helio's financial crisis.

(The iPhone was not without its own problems. At one place, there was a guy who had to charge his phone two or three times per day, because he was playing music and browsing the Internet. My FIN could go most of the day with similar usage. Plus, the iPhone was and is tied to the static-filled and slow AT&T network that people love to hate.)

The point is, I was very happy with what I got from Helio, even if the phone itself wasn't as pleasant. Text messages and e-mail defaulted to T9 text entry mode, which meant that I was constantly having to switch modes, erase what I'd entered, and re-enter my text. The screen was small, and the e-mail display was too confined. If there was any error message from the mail server, the phone would erase your username/password and require you to re-enter it. I could read and send e-mail from several popular services (and POP3/IMAP4-based providers). I could browse the Web (many, but not all, sites were easily viewed). I could view YouTube videos. And if I wanted to do so, I could use the phone as a phone.

Once I added Sprint and the Instinct, the onscreen keyboard was an amazing improvement over the FIN. When Helio and I parted ways, the Sprint phone and service were so reliable that I seriously never missed Helio. (Hint to VirginMobile/Helio: get rid of the foreign-based support line. Oh, and if someone is insuring one phone, ask whether he/she meant to insure all phones on the account. You'd be surprised how an unexpected $400 charge can chase away customers.)

Today
Now, I loved my Instinct. Again, it was not without problems, but I could truly understand why iPhone users are fanatical about their phones. One of the problems I found was that it only sporadically mounted as a disk under Ubuntu Linux. This made it unusable as a media player. I don't really use the media player I have, so it never mattered to me. (As I understand it, Apple tries to prevent Linux users from getting full use of their iPhones and iPods, too.) From first touch, the Instinct was love alive.

The Pre, on the other hand, immediately presented itself as a problem. As a tech-savvy user, I expected to be able to use Bluetooth to beam contacts from the old phone to the new one. Unfortunately, this is currently disabled. We have to bring our phones to the store and ask the nice young man behind the counter to do the transfer for us. I felt like a 65 year-old woman getting the Geek Squad to set up her phone for her.

Once that obstacle was crossed, I noticed just how small the keyboard is. It looks like it was made for a five year-old's fingers. But it takes very little time to get used to it. Soon, you are typing one-handed with pretty good accuracy and speed.

At that point, you start to actually use the features on the phone. And wow! someone did a good job with this phone. There is really not any single feature that is a "killer", must-have feature--at first--on this phone. Everything is very good, and everything has one or two "what were they thinking?" moments, just as the contact-transfer did. The browser is good. The e-mail application is very good. The way the contacts applet fetches and merges your contacts is, again, very good. The ability to switch between IM and SMS messaging and back is very good. In all these things, the Pre far outshines the competitive feature of the iPhone.

But the killer feature, expected to be the physical keyboard, is in fact, the "cards" multitasking metaphor. WebOS, unlike the operating systems in most smart phones, is designed to run multiple apps at once, and to do it in a way that is natural and efficient to use. Once you experience cards, the Instinct, as much as I love it, will never again satisfy. I've watched a few iPhoneys (over-the-top fanatic iPhone users) already struggling with their loyalties once they played with my Pre.

The Pre is attracting a lot of attention right now, even when Apple is reducing the price of the iPhone and introducing an all-3G model (which still runs on a network that doesn't have 3G availability in many parts of the country).

If you have not yet gotten in on the smartphone revolution, take a look at the Pre. If you're an iPhone user who isn't happy with AT&T (or prospective iPhone user who is reluctant because of AT&T), take a look at the Pre. You may be surprised at just how good it is.

VBox 2.2: Yes, Yes, Yes!

2009-04-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

Background

Over the years, as I've tried out different operating systems, I ran into a substantial obstacle: I have very limited hardware available, and I don't want to destroy my existing set up to try out another operating system.

For this reason, I have been a real fan of emulation and virtualization software. Over the years, I have tried out Bochs, Qemu, VMWare Workstation, VMWare Player, VMWare Server, VirtualBox, and probably a few others that I have forgotten. (This does not include Xen, primarily because it requires hardware assist and my hardware is too old for that.)

Two years ago, I had decided to focus on VMWare Server and Qemu. Then the VMWare kernel modules stopped updating in the Ubuntu repositories, which meant that I had to keep an older kernel around and boot into it whenever I planned on using VMWare. So late last year, I gave VirtualBox another look.

VBox 2.0 ran virtual machines faster and with lower memory consumption than VMWare Server had run on my 512MB RAM P4Mobile Dell laptop. It also (finally!) enabled me to set the default storage place for virtual machines onto an external hard drive. When I upgraded to VBox 2.1, it added some networking modes (such as giving the virtual machine an interface on the external network, so other local computers can communicate with it). It was also even less draggy on my system. I recently upgraded to VBox 2.2, which seems snappier still, and adds the ability to import and export virtual machines.

It still does not offer the ability to split a virtual hard disk into several 2GB files, but that is becoming less of an issue as few people host their virtual disks on FAT/FAT32 partitions anymore. Back in the olden days, that feature enabled me to store VMWare virtual machines on FAT32 formatted drives.

I am not using this in an enterprise environment, not using it to provide services to other hosts on the network, and not using it for 'real' work. I'm using it to try out operating systems, but even more for testing out changes I am considering in my 'real' system.

The software is available from the Ubuntu repositories, but they are a little bit behind the VirtualBox project's repositories. Instructions for modifying your sources.lst file to add their repository are on the site. If you are using Ubuntu or one its derived distributions (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linux Mint), be sure to install dkms, so that modules will be compiled for you each time your kernel is upgraded. (Dear VMWare, look into this.)

It just keeps getting better.

Helio Free

2009-03-01T23:17:00.000-08:00

Where I previously was just waiting for October to come, so I could drop Helio without the breakup fee, I decided to go ahead and do it.

It makes me feel better, but I have to say that Helio has not been a bad company to has as your mobile carrier. Other than the fact that first-line support is overseas, and the fact that they have closed their retailer system, they were not a bad mobile carrier.

My problems with them are:

They did not have a way for my bank's payments to be done electronically (generally takes 1 to 2 days from sending to clearing at your vendor). Instead, the bank had to mail a check each month.
The phone I had (the Fin) automatically defaulted to the T9 input system. This means I had to go back and delete garbage and switch it to multipress ABC mode. The phone had no Linux driver available. This wasn't Helio's problem, it was Samsung's problem. But if you send lots of text messages (SMS) and e-mails, it gets maddening quickly.
First-level support is overseas. Being concerned about where my personally identifying information goes, I dislike the fact that it was going outside of U.S. jurisdiction. This includes full name, address, telephone number (obviously), and at least part of the Social Security Number. Of course, there is also the dog's grandmother's uncle's name or some such mumbo jumbo.
Some of their staff members were rude.
When a phone had an issue, it was too expensive--over $300--for the replacement. I ordered insurance on all of the phones and was paying a monthly fee for insurance. Only it turns out that only one phone was covered.
The ownership change resulted in a complete change of character for the company. Where they had been a pleasure to deal with (other than the overseas thing), it became unbearable.

Again, I am not slamming Helio. If their ownership hadn't changed and the Ocean/Ocean2 was available to me last Summer, I probably would be writing about how pleased I was. But instead, they were in danger of going down and leaving me stranded, so I hooked up with Sprint. I got the Instinct (which isn't perfect, but is good enough that it makes Helio redundant).

Personally, I think the MVNO model is dying, now that the main network operators are distributing phones such as the Instinct and the iPhone. The Ocean2 may be really good, but it is no competition to Sprint's Samsung Instinct or AT&T's Apple iPhone.

Drupal Gets OpenID Right

2009-02-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

I recently mentioned that Joomla!'s implementation of OpenID does not add OpenID to regular user identities, as it should have been designed to do. Now I see that Drupal's implementation does exactly that.

I'm not a partisan--I like both content management systems--but it seems to me that someone should really have thought about what OpenID is about.

The good news, from a Joomla! point of view, is that one can override it--replacing the current implementation with something that is actually useful from the site admin's point of view--assuming, of course that one is sufficiently familiar with PHP5 and Joomla! code. I'm not there, at least not yet, but it does suggest a way forward.

Joomla! OpenID Defective

2009-02-03T00:35:00.000-08:00

I mentioned yesterday that Joomla!'s implementation of OpenID is defective. Here's why I say that.

Imagine that your webmail provider is also your OpenID provider. So you go to joomlasite.example.com and log in using OpenID. Later, you notice that your e-mail account is attracting too much spam, so you close it and open a new account with the same provider. Just like that, your account at joomlasite.example.com is gone, because you never had a regular account on the site.

Here's another example: You sign up at joomlasite.example.com with your OpenID account, which is your webmail account. A year or two later, that webmail provider decides to outsource its service and close down their OpenID server. Just as before, you have lost access to everything you had stored on joomlasite.example.com. This is the fragile ID problem.

Both AOL and Microsoft used to offer network single sign-ons. I think these services have been curtailed, but because most accepting services used their own username and password systems and merely associated that with the identity providers, they were considerably more robust than Joomla!'s version of OpenID.

Now this is the way it should work: You cruise over to joomlasite.example.com and create an account. You pick a username and password, just like every other account holder. One of the setup screens, however, allows you to associate an OpenID (or two) with your account. Now, you can log into the site with either the site username and password or the OpenID, but either way, you are using the same account. When you change your webmail account to dodge the spam, you can log into joomlasite.example.com with the site username and password and change which OpenID is associated with the account.

If you want an example of how this works, sign up for an account with Zooomr. You are able to associate one or two 'OpenID's with your account (I'm not exactly sure how many). Should one of your OpenID accounts change, you can still get logged into Zooomr and make whatever changes you need. This is how it should work, and a great example of why Joomla!'s version is defective and deficient.

That said, I realize that the best way to help fix this is by contributing code that remedies the issue. So... Joomla! core team... does anyone have time to teach me enough so that I can contribute the fix? Should I file a bug report? Would you accept a link to this blog article, or would I need to utilize Trac or whatever system you are using?

CMS Fun

2009-02-01T17:52:00.001-08:00

Recently, I've been having fun with content management systems.

Drupal had an update recently. I had manually installed the CMS, meaning that I did not use Fantastico Deluxe or SimpleScripts to install it. The upgrade process was long and convoluted. It failed utterly, leaving me with little choice but to rip it out and reinstall. I could not spend hours fiddling with one site. Fortunately, the hosting service does offer a quick-install, so I installed the replacement that way.

I've also recently tried the PHPWebsite and e107 content management systems. PHPWS seems like it has a lot of functionality, but the management interface is too convoluted. On the other hand, e107 had almost nothing to offer. Actually, I had it pulling down a feed from VGChartz. But when I returned the next day, it was gone, and I could not find a way to get it back. I intend to come back to PHPWS, but for now, I'm going to focus on Drupal and Joomla! and Mambo. Meanwhile, I may put MODx on my test server. The goal is to be reasonably competent at setup and administering (and "skinning") four or five CMSs, and then to learn to write add-ons or extensions for two of them.

I'm also working with Joomla! on a test server. I'm teaching myself to create templates to change the way the site displays. No matter what tutorial I follow, whether online or in a book, my templates say they've installed, but they never show up for me to select them.

Speaking of Joomla!, what is the thing with OpenID? When I turned that feature on, I expected that it would enable regular account-holders to associate their accounts with an OpenID, so they could log in that way. Instead, I find that when you enable OpenID, you enable a whole different class of accounts. Regular accounts and OpenID accounts are not the same, even though you can place OpenID accounts into access-control groups the same way you can place regular accounts into those groups. I'm sorry, but that is not what it should work like. In my opinion, Joomla!'s implementation is defective. I certainly hope that someone in the core group feels the same way. I'd like to see it fixed when version 2.0 comes out.

One more thing, guys. Let's make sure that your CMS offers the ability to directly bond with other applications. The best gallery that I have seen, for example, is Gallery2. (I realize they are ditching it to offer a stripped-down Gallery3 soon.) You should be working with projects such as Laconica, dotProject, G2, Coppermine Photo Gallery (CPG), Vanilla, vBulletin, and WebCalendar, and even other CMSs to offer unified account creation and single sign-on through some agreed-upon interface, such as oAuth.

Yes, there may always be a place for bridging. There may always be a place for CMS add-ons which perform certain functions. But for those who wish to use best-of-breed applications, why shouldn't they usually just work?

Zune, Sprint Instinct Have Year-Change Problems

2009-01-06T20:33:00.001-08:00

There was a widely-covered story about an early model of the Microsoft Zune music player becoming unresponsive on December 31st because it was a leap year. The solution? Wait a day, letting its battery run down. On 2009-JAN-01, recharge the Zune and turn it on.

I found that Sprint's Samsung Instinct also had a problem. Certain net-updated applications started throwing 'uncaught exception' errors and closing sometime around New Year's Day, 2009. Suddenly, I couldn't use the weather applet, the sports applet, the news applet, or the movies applet. Any of them would start, immediately try to update, and then crash.

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with Sprint tech support Tuesday the 6th. At the end, they told me to take it to a store for an in-person repair. After spending another two or three hours walking around the mall waiting for the task to be completed, we picked up our phones. The problem wasn't corrected.

I was convinced already that this was that type of problem, but when I took the phones in for service, the lady in the Sprint store mentioned that two other people had suddenly had the same problem. That's when I knew it was an error related to interpreting the date for data-retrieval.

Some time this morning, Sprint released a 'mandatory update', which fixed the problem completely. Thanks, Sprint. It took longer, but I am happy that I have a real solution, not a temporary work-around.

In other news, I haven't yet canceled my Helio plan, because it ends in October. The $350 breakup fee is the obstacle. Up until just before the Virgin Mobile merger, almost everything about Helio (except for its offshored customer service staff) was pleasing to me. Now, I can hardly wait to dump them. In fact, I may just say goodbye this month. I'm thinking that the whole MVNO thing is just not working anymore. Helio was about cool, media and net-centric phones. First, the iPhone really catered to their market (and other than the poor AT&T service, was better at it than Helio's phones), then Sprint unveiled the Instinct and other media and net-centric phones that, again, were better than Helio's phones. In Sprint's case, they also offered the same fast, reliable network that Helio uses. Once the Instinct came out, there was not really a reason to keep the doors open at Helio any more.

I have to admit, it really annoys me when I send them $140 every month. About the only thing I still do on the Helio phone is check my e-mail. Helio, you're welcome to shut down and save me the breakup fee. Times are hard, and that is money I could use somewhere else.

Sprint, Instinct, Helio

OOo Weblog Tool Has Its Own Faults

2008-12-26T12:05:00.001-08:00

I mentioned the tool's pluses and minuses, but since then, I discovered another one: if OpenOffice.org (OOo) freezes / crashes during posting, you not only do not get a useful blog posting on your site, you also can lose any change since OOo's last backup save.

I am used to ScribeFire, where a crash brings back the full content of your post, and where the only copies I save locally are the ones that ScribeFire itself automatically saves.

I had been working for a couple of hours on a longish post for the Owner-Managed Business blog. I didn't save first, because I was just going to post and get back to preparing the CHRISTmas meal. I clicked the 'upload to blog' button and OpenOffice.org froze. After about twenty minutes, I killed it and restarted it, and then discovered after 'document recovery' that about a third of my post was missing. At that point, I wasn't about to rewrite it, so I just cancelled it.

I would guess that the thing to do is turn OOo's autosave feature back on (it was off because on that seven year-old computer, autosave means you cannot do anything else until it completes) and make sure to save a copy before opening the posting tool.

One cannot really blame this on OOo or the tool. It is definitely the user. But having said this, another tool that I use has anticipated this problem and deals with it successfully. At the same time, I'm not sure Flock has any such mechanism either. But Flock has the advantage of allowing me to get into the markup and hand-tweak each post (at the expense of ALWAYS mangling any Google or Amazon ads). For example, if I wanted to insert a picture link to Amazon's page for the book I'm currently reading, neither OOo nor Flock would work correctly, while ScribeFire works very well.

One more thing: on either Blogger or certain other blogging software, you don't get full access to your categories or tags in the OOo tool. It also doesn't auto-add Technorati or IceRocket tags or ping Ping-O-Matic to let them know you've posted something. I have to say that I like it; I like it a lot. But it isn't fully functional yet. Even so, if you are tired of fussing with your blog's Web interface for posting, try this out. I think you'll like it.

blogging

Sun's Weblog Posting Extension Makes OpenOffice.org Even Better

2008-12-22T22:48:00.001-08:00

Sun's Weblog Posting Extension Makes OpenOffice.org Even Better

It probably isn't made for you if you're obsessive about the markup that comes out of your posting tool. But if you just want to create your content and have it appear on your blog the way you wrote it, this tool is for you. By "probably not for you", I mean that your article/posting is created in the word processor, then you click the "To Weblog" button and it is converted and posted without your help.

It used to be a premium product (that means, it used to cost money). I recently discovered that I could get it without price. I'll have to use it for a while and see whether I wind up going back to my other posting tools (ScribeFire and Flock, now that Bleezer seems to be dead in the water). I haven't been using WriteToMyBlog lately, simply because I want fully off line composing capability. (WTMB is an awesome posting tool, but it is after all a Web site, so it requires online use. WTMB does things automatically that the others require me to go into the markup and edit it directly.)

I do want to point out that the extension also works with StarOffice, the paid version of OpenOffice.org (OOo). I am not sure whether IBM Lotus Symphony can use this extension, but I doubt that KOffice can use it. I also know that Microsoft Office cannot use this extension.

I haven't tried to embed an image, a YouTube video, or an Amazon ad. I do not know how well any of those would work. But if you're mostly doing straight-forward text and links, the OOo extension is probably a good place to look.