Everyone else is linking to this and after reading it I thought I'd point to it as well. Wired is reporting a failed amendment to a new U.S. anti-terrorism bill by the Recording Industry Association of America that would make it legal to hack into a persons machine for the purpose of upholding copyright law. The amendment failed to pass but the RIAA still wants similar measures put in place.
This is one virus update I'll make sure I download.
Mozilla 0.9.5 is out. Not many changes that I can see from 0.9.4 but it's probably more stable. I can't wait for the outstanding mail bugs to get fixed. Now I only need to find out how to fix all those web pages that render strangely under Mozilla.
Via a Slashdot article, Apache Tomcat 4.0 has been released. I think it's time I put JServ to bed.
I felt a little bit older today and memories of my childhood slip farther away when I learned that Ernie Coombs (Mr. Dressup) passed away last night due to complication from a stroke. I still miss Casey and Finnegan too. Story at Canoe.
New virus spreading today. Windows only as usual spreading through email. Symantec has the info on the virus here. McAfee doesn't yet have it up on their new virus page yet.
Dave Winer posted the article Limbs of no body by Mohsen Makhmalbaf on Scripting News. As the intro states it is a long article by web standards but is an incredibly vivid description of Afghanistan from a first hand account.
I believe that before we decide to go to war against Afghanistan because their self proclaimed government protects terrorists we should at least be aware of who we're going to war against.
It's hard to believe that it was only yesterday that the terrorist attacks occured as so much information is being broadcast around the world, it seems almost as several days have passed.
Online, perhaps the best source I've found of grassroots information has come from Dave Winer's Scripting News. Dave has done a tremendous job of providing information for us to reflect and try to take a moment to grasp what has happened and where we go from here.
From the that's odd department. A girl and guy have been standing on the corner across from my building talking for over two hours. Actually the guy is talking and being very animated with his hands. You'd think if he were that interested in chatting with her he'd at least offer to grab a drink at Demetre's across the road. What, perhaps you think she's not interested!?! :-)
Update: 2 hours, 30 minutes total.
Wired has an article on Linux being used more and more in U.S. schools due to the low cost of purchase (free) and reduced maintenance (remote volunteers). Total cost of ownership must be considered but one teacher points out that one third of his school knew Windows, the other third Mac and the remaining third were "not computer literate", so he'd have to train two thirds no matter which way he went. If anyone knows of Canadian schools doing this let me know.
I've rediscovered the Gnutella client Gnotella which is now at version 1.0!
This first major release is incredible compared to the betas. Non-firewalled clients have a great response time and searching in much more efficient than the old days of P2P networks.
I've downloaded the entire Paul Simon Graceland album over the past two nights. I'll have to buy this CD, as I'm enjoying almost all the songs. Love the African backups.
Today Charles and I put in 6 servers, 1 media bay, 1 switch, 1 monitor / keyboard tray, 1 console switch and a mess of cables into our rack at Q9. It took 8.5 hours from pick-up of the machines to pack up at Q9. Not bad really but tiring. Our demo is incredibly fast now due to all the new equipment and an incredibly well connected hosting facility.
It's another late night as I update content on web sites and tie up loose ends. I believe this is the third "past two a.m. night" this week.
Found via Slashdot, Salon has an article profiling a symbol of the .com spending glut, the Aeron chair from Herman Miller. I had an Aeron chair when I was on contract at Sympatico Lycos. Very comfortable.
Pictures from the Unit 301 4.0 party are now up. Not too many this time. I forgot there was a camera after the first hour.
Dave Winer mentioned today that the New York Times has changed their layout to include mostly Reuters and AP articles, which as Dave mentions, may allude to an upcoming subscription requirement.
Dave also mentions that he can't point into subscription services. For various reasons I assume this is because one, he either doesn't have a subscription or two, he feels that he shouldn't point as his readers might not have a subscription.
I personally wouldn't want to subscribe to all the possible content sources that are available online, however it is possible for content providers to offer micro-payment services on a per-article basis. Content providers could offer either a summary or better yet the first third or half of an article and offer the remainder for a small price using either PayPal or the other available micropayment services.
Now micro-payments are an entirely separate discussion but offer various options for readers. You can pay on a per article basis, per topic (general news, business, sports, etc), or a network of publications could offer a unified discount package.
Perhaps content marketers knows what I would rather not believe. Readers are used to subscriptions. Anything else is either too complex for them, or not profitable.
Joel Spolksy is back from vacation and puts up another good article for the software industry. "Good software, like wine, takes time."
Several weeks ago I completed the first iteration of my form manager. (yet to be documented and available for download) As a result I'm going to try and construct my site largely around the itea of a web log. Yes it's trendy, but I like them and it will allow me to use my web site to rant and spew from the virtual pulpit a lot easier than if I were to edit XML and HTML files.
Stay tuned!
They're fun, they're low in fat, and they taste awesome. Making tacos isn't just for kids!
turkey or chicken fried in light oil