Tech archive at Puck’s Blog

Archive for the 'Tech' Category

Jun

Canadian DMCA is worse than the American one

By Puck 0 Comments

Categories: P2P and Rant

Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice introduced his answer to the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act today as planned, and it’s even worse than the US DMCA. The Canadian DMCA allows every single exception to copyright to be eliminated by adding DRM: whatever the law allows you to do, a corporation can take away, just by using DRM to prevent you from doing it. Breaking DRM is illegal, unless you fit into a tiny, narrow, useless exception for security research.

Yes, that’s right — the new copyright law being introduced does have provisions for making backups of your media, and fair use UNLESS the creator of that media puts a digital lock (DRM) on it. Which they all will. Which makes the exceptions worthless.

Canadians, write your MP!

More information from BoingBoing:

This is even worse than the approach the US DMCA took ten years ago, and look where that’s got them. Tens of thousands of Americans have been sued, key innovative technology companies have been destroyed, computer scientists have been jailed, and what did it get them? Certainly not an end to infringement — file-sharing is up in every country in the world. And for all the money the record industry has harvested from tech startups and music fans, not one dime has been paid to an artist.

As I’ve said before on this blog, industry-led actions like this are the thrashing about of dying dinosaurs. The Internet and digital commerce means an end to the companies that have taken control away from creators, and they know it and they’re trying everything they can to maintain their bottom line — including lobbying for disgusting new laws like this.

Apr

Creative Labs Creatively — I mean Unethically — Encourages Hardware Upgrades

By Puck 5 Comments

Categories: Rant and Tech

Full info at this Wired News article. The gist of the problem is this: Creative Labs has written their sound card drivers (the software that tells your Operating System how to use the hardware) so that they don’t work very well on Vista on older hardware, thus encouraging people to upgrade to newer, “more compatible” hardware.

And when someone found this out and in the processed fixed the drivers so they worked on the older hardware again? He got threats from Creative, legal ones.

It’s time to Boycott Creative. Don’t by their hardware any more!

Mar

I’m about to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5.

By Puck 5 Comments

Categories: Wordpress

So if things go all weird, you’ll know why.

Update: That went smoothly and wow the backend looks gorgeous. I’m very intersted in checking out the new features.

Wordpress team: YOU ROCK!

Feb

Piclens

By Puck 0 Comments

Categories: Cool and Software

I haven’t been impressed by new software in quite a while, especially web-browser stuff, but wow, Piclens is amazing. It turns browsing photos into an amazing 3D experience. And it’s not just cool, it’s totally convenient and quick!

I haven’t been able to get it to work with Maxthon yet, but if I see how I’ll update this post. It works great in IE and Firefox (and Safari for Mac users).

Dec

RIAA Goes Batshit Insane or Unabashedly Evil, You Decide

By Puck 2 Comments

Categories: P2P and Rant

Now they’re claiming copying your legitimately bought CDs to MP3 format for your own personal use on your computer is illegal.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

Yes, that’s right. Not content to sue grandmothers and children who happen to run Kazaa, the RIAA is now suing a guy for ripping his legal CDs to his computer.

Fuck the RIAA. It’s time to just stop buying music altogether and let them die out as fast as possible so we can get some fair copyright going on. Check your planned music purchases on RIAA Radar and don’t buy if they’re published by an RIAA member.

Dec

Fight the Canadian DMCA

By Puck 1 Comment

Categories: P2P and Rant

I stole this from a forum posting because it’s got all the relevant information well presented. I’d already joined the Facebook group Fair Copyright For Canada, but thanks for the links/writeup J0no!

Well, it’s that time of year again, and the government is trying to introduce a bill to reform Canadian copyright law and ratify the terms of those questionable WIPO treaties the Liberals signed on our behalf in the late-90’s.

The good news is, the new bill appears to have been derailed right out of the gate.

The bad news is, they will almost certainly be introducing this bill into Parliament just as soon as they have their strategy worked out, and it’s sounding like it will be even worse than the squashed Liberal bill C-60.

If you don’t know what this is, will be an amendment to the Canadian Copyright Act, in a very similar vein to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I don’t want to provide a full break down of what this might mean at the moment, but basically what this will do is give large copyright holders the ability to control what devices you can use to enjoy electronic media, and thereby control how and when you can use it. The idea is that this will somehow curtail media piracy.

The implications of that are already fairly extreme. As just one of numerous examples, imagine you own an iPod and you decide you would like to purchase another music player from another company. Well, I hope you didn’t buy too much music from the iTunes music store, because this new law will provide Apple with legal protection from you ever playing your music on a player that is not Apple-approved.

For more information, here are some links I stole from the Fair Copyright for Canada facebook group:

Web-Based Resources on Canadian Copyright
Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca
Digital-Copyright.ca: http://www.digital-copyright.ca
Fair Copyright: http://www.faircopyright.ca
CIPPIC: http://www.cippic.ca
Online Rights Canada: http://www.onlinerights.ca
Excess Copyright: http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/

Michael Geist’s The Canadian DMCA: What You Can Do
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2431/125/

Michael Geist’s Copyright Choices and Voices
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2419/125/

BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow on Canadian copyright reform
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/27/canadas-coming-dmca.html

CBC’s Search Engine Asks Questions of Industry Minister Jim Prentice
http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2007/11/last_chance_to_ask_the_industr.html

Aug

Bioshock

By Puck 0 Comments

Categories: Cool and Software

I just finished Bioshock for the PC, and it’s one of the best single-player game experiences I’ve ever had. I’d suggest everyone rush out and buy the game but you’ll need a pretty hefty computer to play it. A better option for those that don’t stay updated with gaming PCs is to finally get yourself an XBox 360 and get Bioshock for it.

View This Video on You Tube

Before I put my meagre writing skills to the test to explain why it’s so good, just go read all the reviews from Metacritic (96% average rating for PC, 97% for 360 — AVERAGE!)

Graphically the game is gorgeous. It doesn’t just have the latest-and-greatest in graphics technology — one of the reasons your PC should be pretty good to run it — but the art direction is some of the best I’ve ever experienced in a game. The game is set in 1960 and has an incredible art-deco look, with brilliant shades of steampunk that convince you that all the marvelous technology you experience is actually possible in that setting.

View This Video on You Tube

Note that this commercial isn’t using actual gameplay footage but instead gives you a compressed idea of what you’ll be doing.

Moving past the graphics, the gameplay is deep, intense, frightening and at times incredibly emotional. You’ll have lots of hard decisions to make — your “powers”, weapon upgrades, skills and abilities as well as a choice between what is morally right but less profitable and… well, something horrible I never did and possibly paid a price for in game ease. Yeah, yeah, I’m a good guy in video games.

There’s a free PC demo available through Steam, and if you have a 360 it’s available to download from the XBox Live Marketplace. Both demos are the first 45 minutes of the game and are well worth trying out.

PCs will need at least Windows XP, a P4 2.5 GHz (or equivalent), DX9c compliant video card with 128MB, and 1GB of RAM.

Aug

Logitech Comes Through

By Puck 2 Comments

Categories: Cool and Hardware

A few years back we splurged and bought ourselves a Programmable Universal Remote. As I always do on such purchases I did my research online, comparing features, prices, and customer satisfaction, and decided on the Logitech Harmony 880 Universal Remote. That’s it to the right, beside its charging station.

The remote worked great, allowing us to easily switch between our digital cable, XBox, PS2 and DVD player. Every function was supported, every piece of hardware was recognized. When I got an XBox 360, the remote software was able to update it to fully control it too.

But right from the start we had a problem — the charging station was finicky. In order to get the remote to sit on it and charge, it often had to be on a slight angle. Even then I’d often have to monkey with it for minutes to get it to start charging, and once it was you had to let it sit untouched and unbumped or the whole dance had to start again. I googled for an answer to this problem and noticed that many others were having the same problem and at that time Logitech didn’t have an answer for them. I sucked it up and waited. The battery lasts long enough that one overnight charge per week was plenty, so we just put up with the hassle.

About a week ago I was having even more problems getting the remote to charge and finally decided to google for a solution again. By now we were out of warranty, but I thought that perhaps some kind of sandpapering or even soldering could help the contacts meet properly. I didn’t care, I just wanted it to work. I was surprised to find that not only had Logitech owned up to there being a problem with the charging station, but that they had fixed it and were sending out replacements to those that asked for it. There was even a report online by someone who was out of warranty that managed to get it.

So I gave Logitech support a call. The “Tier 1″ woman I got was very helpful and after going through her support script — I’m technically savvy so I wanted to skip past it, but she couldn’t — she acknowledged the problem with the base but reported that because I was out of warranty she didn’t have the authority to get a replacement sent. My heart sank, but she followed it up with, “but Tier 2 support can, so I’m going to bump you up to Tier 2 with a note that you’ll need a new charging station.”

And she did. And when I talked to the Tier 2 guy, he listened to the problem, asked a few specifics then went on hold and came back to tell me he’d be sending out a replacement charging station! Out of warranty!

And today a courier arrived with a big box and inside it contained not just the charging station but a whole new remote as well! Of course I have to ship back the defective one, so no, I don’t have a spare for someone that wants it. With support calls normally a real pain in the butt to get anything done with it was a real pleasure dealing with Logitech, especially since I acknowledged the entire way that I was out of warranty and should have called right away.

The new remote is charging on its station right now. I carelessly dropped it down and it instantly made the “charging” sound and the charging light came on. One less tech annoyance down. Thanks Logitech!

Jul

Shaw Blocking Port 25

By Puck 10 Comments

Categories: Tech

Look out, technical talk and stern glares at Internet noobs incoming!

I’ve had problems sending email the past few days. After some troubleshooting I discovered that my port 25 (default outgoing email) was being blocked by Shaw Cable, my ISP. They’re doing this in an attempt to block virus/trojan generated spam emails. Too many of you people aren’t running good antivirus and insist on opening email attachments that you thought were hot Anna Kournakova pics. Thanks for wrecking the Internet for those of us who know better!

Anyway…

One workaround is to use their server for outgoing email. I’m not going to do that. I have my own server (holycow.com — this blog is hosted on it) that I want all my mail to get routed through, thanks. But I can’t connect to it using port 25 any more. I knew I could use a secure connection but didn’t know the default port offhand, and Outlook certainly wasn’t giving me any pointers.

Well, I’ve figured it out. If you’re running a default Cpanel exim install the default SSL Email port is: 465. To use this in Outlook XP (other versions should be similar):

Go to Tools > Account Settings, double-click your account
Click the “More Settings” button
Click the “Advanced” tab
Change the “Outgoing server (SMTP):” port from “25″ to “465″
Change “Use the following type of encrypted connection:” to “SSL” (older versions of Outlook don’t have this — instead they have a “Use encryption” type checkbox, so check it)

That should do it, without having to make any changes on the server side.

And remember, this port block is all your fault, you non-virus-scanner, email-attachment-opening noob, you.

Jun

iDon’tCare

By Puck 5 Comments

Categories: Hardware and Rant

Apple’s new iPhone is coming out soon, and I find myself caring very little about it. It’s a pretty big change from a few years back when Nokia announced their nGage and I was instantly filled with desire. Thankfully I didn’t get an nGage because they turned out to be an incredible flop.

Now? Well, the iPhone is certainly impressive. It’s beautiful and classy, and does a ton of things that makes gadget geeks like me drool.

So why don’t I care?

Because all I really want my cell phone to do is be a phone, and the reviews on that portion of its capabilities have been lukewarm. I have a Motorola Razr. It’s got a camera built in, but it doesn’t compare to my digital camera. I think I’ve taken two pictures in the two years I’ve owned it that I kept or used anywhere. It has other capabilities too, but I don’t use any of those either. I use it to talk to other people and it does that just fine.

Music? I have an iPod and it holds WAY more than the iPhone does.

Video? Do I really need portable video that badly? Or *that* portable? If I’m travelling I’ll have my notebook with me and its screen is heaps better than the iPhone’s, and it also holds far more information.

Another reason is that a large amount of what the iPhone does requires data transfer from your provider, and the rates on that are outrageous. Not just “expensive” but “sickeningly expensive”. I can browse the web through my Razr, but Rogers charges me $.15 per kilobyte. Yes, KILOBYTE. Download 100 kb and they charge you $15.00! I can’t imagine the cost of using the iPhone at those extortionist rates. Yes, I’m sure there are plans with cheaper data, but I wouldn’t use it enough to justify an increased regular fee. I’m annoyed enough as it is with what I’m paying for cellular service, and that’s just to talk to people.

While I’m ranting here, hey Rogers, thanks for charging me extra for call display. I’m sure it actually costs you more to DISABLE that display for people who don’t want to pay for it.

So yeah, drool away over the iPhone. It’s slick, it’s just not worth it in the real world.