Tech Musings

Epic Fail in Copyright Accusation Methodology

2008-06-05T14:59:00.001-05:00

It seems the MPAA/RIAA attack anyone for copyright infringement, including people who have never used p2p, and, this is just amazing, a printer. Yes you read right, a printer was accused of downloading Indiana Jones and Iron Man. I suppose if you ever get a filesharing notice then you can use this as defence.

link

Olbermann calls out Bush

2008-05-15T17:03:00.002-05:00

I like this guy. He said what needed to be said, but more passionately than other news wimps.

ISP Traffic Shaping Tips

2008-05-15T08:41:00.003-05:00

This post is about Traffic Shaping(no, not that^), which is where ISP's(Internet Service Provider) limits speeds on traffic they feel could be illegal. The problem with this is that they throttle ALL BitTorrent(which is a file sharing service much like Limewire or Kazaa, but much more efficient) traffic, which includes such legal things as the latest version of Ubuntu or a FLAC version of The Slip by Nine Inch Nails, both of which are perfectly legal. The artical I was reading had a few ides listed to get arround this:
1.switch ISP's
2. optimize your torrent program to hide that it is a torrent program
3. Tunnel your traffic to completely hide all traffic.

read the article for tips on 2 and 3

Source:
image- http://www.primidi.com/images/smart_city_car_2.jpg
Song in Podcast- 3 Ghosts 1 by Nine Inch Nails, which is freely distributable under the Creative Commons License.
info- http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;409444582;pp;2;fp;16;fpid;1

First Podcast

2008-05-09T07:59:00.004-05:00

it seems I forgot a direct link. here it is:

Add Games To Your Zune

2008-05-08T19:50:00.001-05:00

Do you want games on your zune? here's a howto I found on zuneboards:
1. update to software and firmware 2.5
2.1. Download the follow 2 program:

Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0 CTP

Visual C# 2008 Express Edition

2. Install C# 2008 first

3. Now install the XNA Game Studio program

4. After installing it, Open up C# and try to find the monitor with the
x/cross on it. if you can't find it.. follow the tutorial below

****Getting the Monitor with X/cross on it****

******1. open up software and you might not see the monitor with the cross/x on it

2. right click on the side.. and you'll see some option.. click on XNA Game Studio Device management

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 598x343.

3. after clicking on that.. it will show up.. and click on it.. add new device..

or

To get the x-screen thing, click start menu-> programs ->
Microsoft XNA Game STUDIO ctp-> ZNA studio device center. (from jackluo923)

****adding your device to that software****

1. click on the monitor with x/cross on it.

2. once that is open.. you'll see this should be empty if you haven't add any device on it yet.

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3. click on the "+" sign in green.

4. another new window will pop up like this:

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 622x391.

5. click on the zune

6. theres a window like this.. and click on your zune i didn't have anything connected just showing you people

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 634x373.

7. click on next and it will say testing connection.

once you have that, then download the games below me:

Galactic Wars 3

http://focusedgames.com/downloads/GW3_050708.zip

Allien Aggressors(zune 30+4/8/80)

http://nick.gravelyn.com/2008/05/07/...-zune-edition/

Allien Aggressors zune pad version(zune 4/8/80), to get this for
your zune v2, you need to download the game first, then extract both of
them... from the zunepad folder, copy and paste it to the other game
folder where you open the alienaggressor file. open
folder>AlienAggressors>AlienAggressors again. the past the Ships
and Game State folder in it.

http://cid-de47921b27cead6e.skydrive...AggZunePad.zip

***INSTRUCTIONS***

1. when you download both of the files for the alien aggrassor game... you'll get this when you extract it.

2. open it up and you'll get this

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3. copy those 2 files

4. paste it to the other folder...

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When you have the games extracted, open the .sln file.

***Allien Aggressor***

1. open the file

2. connect your zune

3. go to build and then deploy to zune

heres the pic for Allien Agressor

***Galatic Wars 3***

1. open file

2. connect zune

3. go to build and deploy to zune, if that don't work, click on start debugging also and click deploy again.

heres the pic for galatic war 3:

*****For Zune 30gb users*****

You can fix Galatic Wars 3 to support first generation zunes, simply open the following file, Player.cs, found in:

GW3

+-Entities

+-Player.cs

do a find and replace on the following

find:

Buttons.LeftThumbstickRight

replace with:

Buttons.DPadRight

find:

Buttons.LeftThumbstickLeft

replace with:

Buttons.DPadLeft

find:

Buttons.LeftShoulder

replace with:

Buttons.A

(you could also add OR's to the thumbstick if's in order to make the code zune30 & zune80 compat at same time)

save the file, deploy, enjoy

for more games go here
source:http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/tutorials/23605-installing-game-xna-your-zune.html

Added a Podcast!

2008-05-07T08:29:00.003-05:00

just click the button at the right to subscribe.

Nine Inch Nails - The Slip

2008-05-05T17:54:00.001-05:00

This album is being given away 100% FREE from the bands website!
click here and enter your email and your set. Im not a huge N.I.N. fan, but I love their new direction(Giving away Ghosts I free, now The Slip, similar to Radiohead with In Rainbows)

Iron Man Review

2008-05-02T03:08:00.002-05:00

Iron Man was a great movie. It was slow at first, with a lot of talking. It was also fairly unbelievable, but thats to be expected of a comic book adaptation. The action scenes were great, full of explosions and fighting. There was also political commentary on the nature of war. all in all it was a sweet movie.

image:http://www.lomag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ironman.jpg

World's First ''Roll-to-Roll'' Manufactured OLED

2008-03-12T06:34:00.000-06:00

I'll start this off with a little background info. A Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED)is thin organic material between two electrodes. This organic material lights up when current is applied. OlEDs are also much more efficient than traditional lighting.
OK, so now that you have a bit of background info, you are probably wandering what this "Roll-to-Roll" thing is. It means they are "printed" like newspaper. This allows for dirt cheap production of highly efficient lighting. The benefits are obvious, but there are some cool things too, such as light emitting wallpaper for your house.

Source: http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080311005806&newsLang=en
Image:http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20071017/light-emitting-wallpaper/

Tip for those of you who use Zune.

2008-03-11T12:43:00.000-06:00

If you are on the new software(The one that came with the Zune 4/8/80)and find it slow. try this:
1. right click on the Zune desktop icon, and click "Properties"
2. in the Target field add -gdi at the end so it says "C:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -gdi

Hope this helps.

Source

If you are a Zuner, I urge you to join Zuneboards

Internet Explorer 8 to be Standards Compliant

2008-03-04T07:54:00.000-06:00

For those of you that don't know Internet Explorer has had issues with standards compliance in the past. IE will largely ignore the standards and do what they want because they have 70% of the browser market. When IE7 launched, it broke many pages, because they were made to display in IE6, and 7 fixed alot of bad coding in 6. Microsoft wants to avoid this problem with IE8, and has made it standards compliant, as well as offering a backwards compatibility mode.
The only problem is, to display web pages in older browser modes you have to add a code

in this example the web page is built to run in IE7 and Firefox 2. The big issue with this is that there will be billions of pages that DON'T have the tag because most won't know it exists, and the page will load horribly. I for one am waiting for that web breaking day of release for IE8, and am saying "Switch to Firefox"

Intellectual Property Tax?

2008-02-27T07:41:00.000-06:00

I recently read an article about Intellectual Property that made an interesting point: If it is actual property, why isn't there a property tax? The goal is to keep people from uselessly renewing the copyright when it is of no benefit to them. It is a very FOSS (Free Open Source Software) friendly idea. If it happened, software of no use to the owner would go public domain and be able to be built upon by the community, and make something better. The article mentions the example of old scientific books, which have gone out of print due to not being profitable, can't be put on the internet for wider availability due to copyright laws, and thus, the information is lost to researchers today.
The question is how to figure the amount to tax a idea for. One thought is that the person who comes up with the idea can decide how much to be taxed, and if copyright is broken, that amount is the maximum you can sue for, so no $1,500,000 per CD lawsuits. Another idea would be a simple standard percentage value of the total income of the copyright, until it hits low enough, and it goes into public domain.

What are your thoughts? Does this seem like a good idea to you? Any better ideas?

Better question: Will we have to go through thisfor our ideas, or will the new tax have a better system?

Image source: "tax table 1.jpg." Windgrove. 27 Feb 2008 .