Tag: Geek Stuff

Interesting Idea from Palm

Palm is certainly working on interesting ideas. WebOS, although lacking, is certainly interesting since you can write applications using standard web development tools. Well Palm has a new tool to make development easy.

Ares is a web based WebOS development tools. Apparently it’s supposed to make already easy development (seriously WebOS is dead simple to write applications for) process easier.

There aren’t many details on the new tool but Palm did give a live demonstration at this year’s Open Mobile Summit. From that it’s known that nothing needs to be installed on the machine you’re developing with (everybody runs in a web browser) and apparently things are all drag-and-droppy.

Anyways I just thought it was something interesting to bring up.

Internet Censorship on the Move Again

Those hounding for American ISPs to censor the Internet have a new scheme up their selves. This time, surprisingly, it has nothing to do with “protecting the children.” The new bill titled the Investor Protection Act has been introduced by Representative Paul Kanjorski, a dumbass from Pennsylvania.

The bill would require ISPs to block sites hosting financial scams. Let me rephrase that, the bill would require ISPs to block all electronic material related to financial scams. This of course sounds like a good thing right? Wrong.

This is what I call the negotiating with terrorists maneuver. As a country we have an official stance to never negotiate with terrorists. It’s a good policy because if you negotiate with terrorists you open the floodgates to other terrorists attacking you in the hopes of negotiating something out of you. If you legally require ISPs to filter any single thing it opens the floodgates to legally force them to filter other materials using the last bill as precedence. Gun control laws often get passed now because way back when somebody decided bills restricting constitutional rights were OK in one situation.

As it sits right now ISPs are not forced to filter any traffic. If you get scammed that’s your fault. But alas don’t be stupid and you won’t get scammed, just like real life. On the other hand if you do something illegal your ISP will cooperate with law enforcement to take you down. The system right now works and keeps the Internet an open medium here in the United States. We need to shoot this bill down less we start dealing with other filtering bills.

Net Neutrality

Unless you’ve been living under a slab of pure granite for the last couple of years you’ve heard of the war looming over the Internet. The war has been given the name Net Neutrality and at risk is the very freedom of the Internet.

The war had another shot recently introduced by none other than John McCain, the self professed luddite, who recently introduced the deceptively named Internet Freedom Act.

Net neutrality boils down to this, several of the world’s largest ISPs want to have discretion over what Internet traffic can flow over their wires. Comcast wants to ban peer or peer, AT&T wants voice over IP destroyed, and all the big players would love to make you buy a tiered Internet. What do I mean by tiered Internet? Well it’s a lot like cable television, if you want the basic web like e-mail and Yahoo you pay a certain fee. If you want access to “premium” websites like YouTube you have to pay an additional free. You get the picture.

On the other hand you are dealing with a company’s liberty to conduct business without interference from the government. Free market involves a lack of government interference in corporate matters. The only way to achieve net neutrality is to have the government tell the ISPs they can’t selectively filter Internet traffic. Of course companies are the people who built the infrastructure and pay for the equipment maintenance to keep the Internet going so they should have a right to do what they want with it correct?

Well that’s what it boils down to. The problem is nothing is quite as simple as it appears. I am the last person who is going to profess a need for government to do something and certainly you would expect me to say the FCC should not be allowed to regulate the Internet correct? Here is the problem, the government has been meddling with the Internet since before it was created.

The Internet as we know it today evolved from a Cold War research project called ARPANET. The idea behind ARPANET was to create a communication system that was decentralized and therefore would stand a better chance of surviving a first strike incident by the Soviets. Since no central unit was required by ARPANET to function there was no single target the Soviets could strike to disable our communication capabilities. Eventually research based off of ARPANET was released into the private sector. This research is what the Internet you see before you evolved from.

The Internet itself was made in a generalized manner so it could be broadcast through almost any media. It didn’t depend on a specific cabling system, nor a wireless frequency. This lead to the eventual use of the already established phone lines to send data across. That key item is the reason phone companies like AT&T and Verizon were able to become Internet providers, they had the infrastructure.

Here is where we run into move government control though. Back when the phone system was created the government was quick to establish a sanctioned monopoly to control it. This sanctioned monopoly was granted to Bell Systems which is still commonly referred to as Ma Bell. So from the get go the phone system was controlled by one central agency, obviously not a development from the free market. Eventually a case, the United States vs. AT&T, started in 1974 and concluded in 1982 broke the government sanctioned telecommunication monopoly. In return for divesting their local exchanges Ma Bell was allowed to enter the personal computer field.

This divesture was where our modern telecommunication companies hail from. Originally the breakup created eight “Bell Babies.” Through mergers we eventually ended up with three major players being AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest. All of this is important to note because the telecommunication field has been so heavily influenced by government control there is no way to know how it would have evolved without government control.

So now we find ourselves in a rather precarious situation. Either we call on the government to regulate the Internet, an entity of its own creation, or allow companies, also entities of its own creation, to do as they please. But we can look further yet into this. We need to look no further than the United States Postal Service.

What could the Postal Service possibly have to do with the Internet? Well it’s an example of how much our founding fathers cherished the idea of open communication. The Postal Service is established in Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution. The clause states, “To establish post offices and post roads.” That in itself isn’t greatly useful for the topic at hand but it’s reason for establishment is. As already stated it was created to ensure interstate communication. Secondly it was a form of revenue for the United States government in its early days. Still the idea of open communication existed in the very beginning of this country.

And that’s what the Internet provides, communication. But not just interstate communication but inter-country communication as well. Much like the telephone service before it and the postal service before that the Internet facilitates open communication between people.

It is through this research and understanding that I personally support the concept of net neutrality. The Postal Service doesn’t discriminate what kind of mail you send, and Ma Bell didn’t establish restrictions on who you called. Why should the Internet ISPs be allowed to control the means of which you use the Internet?

Google Chrome OS Release is a Hoax

OK just a heads up for anybody who read Google released a beta of Chrome OS, it’s a hoax. Somebody posted a Google Sites page with a virtual machine image and ISO download of “Chrome OS” which is actually SuSE Studio with Chrome installed. The site has since been disabled.

When Google releases Chrome OS trust me, they’ll post it on their official blog.

So Much For the Barnes and Nobel Nook Lending Feature

In the post I made previewing the Barnes and Nobel Nook eReader device I mentioned the lending feature. Well it appears the lending feature is completely gimped.

Well it appears each title you have can only be loaned out once and only for 14 days. Note that the wording seems to imply you can loan a title once period, not once per person. The other strike against this feature is a book can only be loaned out if the published allows this behavior. I can officially strike that feature off as something cool.

I Think We Have More People

Joe Huffman does a quick Internet approved survey to determine popularity between the gun rights crowd and the anti-gunners. He uses the number of followers each have on Twitter which is the Internet excepted method of determining everything.

Well we’re winning. In fact the Brady Bunch’s actual Twitter account is almost eclipsed in popularity by Mr. Huffman’s own daughter. Of course Mr. Huffman doesn’t take into consideration another possible meaning behind this. Anti-gunners are too stupid to understand how to use a service that involves sending 140 character messages. I guess typing is hard for any group of people who are using both of their hands to cover their ears while they scream, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU LA LA LA!” at the stop of their lungs.

Barnes and Nobel Nook

It’s no secret to those who know me that I read a lot. I also have a habit of reading several books at the same time. According to my girlfriend that’s messed up but alas I usually have several topics I’m interested in at the same time and depending on the interest that’s most peaked at the time I’ll read a different book. Due to this I’ve been following the e-book reader market.

I bought an Amazon Kindle about a year and a half ago and have absolutely loved it. It’s nice being able to carry my entire library with me wherever I go. It’s also convenient since I don’t have to either drive to a book store to purchase a book or order it online and wait for the title to be delivered. Before getting my Kindle I spent a lot of time in Barnes and Nobel carousing books. Now I stop in there maybe once every couple of months to browse their non-fiction titles since the Kindle store has a pretty horrible selection in that department.

Well Barnes and Nobel yesterday (or maybe the day before I forgot) announced their entry into the e-book reader market, the Nook. Of course this requires a comparison of the two products.

The Nook stands out from the Kindle in a few areas. The first, and most obvious, is the LCD touch screen located below the ePaper display. This is where you do all your navigating and controls. More on that in a bit. The second difference is the Nook uses AT&T’s 3G network instead of Sprint’s. But to alleviate the pains of using AT&T’s network (seriously their network has less coverage than most bikinis) the Nook also includes Wi-Fi. Two other features the Nook has that the latest Kindle doesn’t (although the previous model did) is a replaceable battery and a memory card slot.

I guess I’m going to cover my thoughts on the differences. First I want to talk about the LCD touch screen being touted as the chief wham-bam feature of the Nook. I don’t like it. Yup you heard me right I don’t like it. My reasoning is three fold. First LCD screens suck power every second they are one. Displays using ePaper technology only use power while they are actively switching pages meaning while you are reading a page no power is being used by the display. That means the LCD screen on the Nook will drop the battery life and long battery life is one of my favorite features of e-book readers.

The second issue I have with the LCD is viewing it outside. See ePaper displays work very well in direct sunlight so you can comfortably use the devices outside. LCDs on the other hand become very difficult to read in direct sunlight so the Nook has a contrast here. The main reader works best with a lot of light while the navigation screen works best without direct light hitting it. This seems like a duality in usefulness to me.

The third issue I have with the LCD screen is the fact LCD screens are backlit. This means the LCD screen is going to be much brighter than the ePaper display that you actually read from. The problem is the human eye is drawn more towards bright items then items having no source of light. Unless there is a way to easily kill the backlight on the LCD while reading a book I would find this to be quite an annoyance after some time. Again this is coming from a person who can plop down and read for a couple hours straight, I doubt it would be any sort of issue if you only read a few minutes at a time (but if that’s you why waste your money on an e-book reader?).

I hate AT&T’s network. You don’t hear this often but I love being on Sprint’s network. Why? Because I get data coverage almost everywhere and phone coverage in even more places. I can get high speed data in a podunk little town like Winona, Minnesota and basic data in Caledonia, MN (where AT&T coverage is practically non-existant). When my friends on AT&T have coverage issues I have three or four bars normally. Hell my phone works in my apartments garage. So needless to say I really like being able to purchase books on my Kindle from practically anywhere without the need for Wi-Fi. But having the option of Wi-Fi for times when data service coverage is unavailable is a great idea which I highly approve of.

With that said there are some features of the Nook I really like. There is a method of loaning books to friends which the Kindle completely lacks. Honestly I don’t really lend books to friends but it would be nice to have the option should the situation arise. The truth of the matter though is we need to eliminate DRM all together. Of course I believe it will take the publishing industry many years to figure this out. Hell look how long it took the music industry until they started allowing DRM free MP3s to be sold and later songs sold on the iTunes music store.

The removable battery is a huge plus in my book. I still have the first generation Kindle and hence a removable battery. But alas I’m not one to phase our my devices overly often unless a new device has new features that can justify an upgrade to me. I do run into battery failure issues with my devices and do desire a method to replace the battery myself when that occurs. This is one of the issues I have with the iPhone and iPod series of products. With that said I can’t imagine a situation where I’d need to replace a battery in an ePaper device due to depleting the battery through use. Seriously I can go a couple weeks with my Kindle without needing to recharge it so long as I keep the wireless switched off.

Barnes and Nobel is claiming 1,000,000 e-books when their store goes live. Amazon’s Kindle store currently proclaims 350,000 titles. Depending on what titles Barnes and Nobel is claiming (for instance they mention free e-books which are probably out of copyright titles which means I can also get them free on my Kindle) this could be a huge boon. I know the Kindle store has some odd gaps in their titles (Jurassic Park still isn’t available). If Barnes and Nobel can get a larger selection of titles that would jump them ahead pretty far.

The Nook does support native PDFs by the looks of it. Many papers I read are in PDF format and I can get them on my Kindle after a dance involving a free e-mail address that sends the PDF to Amazon to convert it. The Kindle DX natively supports PDFs but it’s also a huge honking device compared to my paperback sized Kindle. The more natively formatted formats supported on a device the better in my opinion.

I’ll hold my final judgement until the Nook is actually released but I really don’t see any major advantage it has over the Kindle and the LCD is a huge disadvantage on a dedicated reading device in my opinion. But one fact is certainly true competition is good and the Nook will give some heavy competition to the Kindle.

Barnes and Nobel are also claiming special in-store features. This is really meaningless to me since one of the advantages, to me, of an e-book reader is not having to go to a store to gain any features. But again I highly doubt any main feature of the Nook will depend on going into a Barnes and Nobel store to use it.

It’s About Time

Nothing dreadfully much to report here but Apple finally released a new mouse. I know not a big deal it’s a fucking mouse. But this one finally eliminates that damned trackball that always ended up not functioning after a short while due to dust and other crud getting under the ball. Instead this one is a multi-touch mouse which means no buttons are on it at all and the mouse works off of the same touch gestures as the trackpad on newer Apple laptops. I’ve been waiting for a company to do something like this for about ten years now, honestly was it really that hard?