Negotiating with Pirates?

There was a nice post a few weeks ago around a story of a guy that wrote to a release group and asked nicely to have his software pulled from there distribution of cracked software. He was able to make the request because the email to the release group was in the cracked titles NFO. The story ends nicely with the RG agreeing to stop distributing the software. The whole conversation was very civilized.

It’s no surprise that this grassroots side of the pirating world exists where they seem to listen to and may actually care about the small time developer.

Where the conversation gets interesting, if not predictable, is in the comments to the post. The story had over a thousand diggs and has seen active commenting with the latest on June 26th.  The bickering back and forth about what should be pirated and when, under what circumstances and with what motivation is relentless, although entertaining.

At the end of the day it seems the software is still available in the torrent channels as someone posted in the comments. This doesn’t mean that the RG didn’t pull the software. It just means that once it is in the wild, well… it’s in the wild. Good luck stopping it.

How to stop warez pirates? Ask nicely.

Pirates aren’t evil? (this link points to the software developers posting of the NFO and conversation)

The lessons of life

I ran across the 6 Billion Others site in one of the feeds I follow a few weeks ago. Aside from being a good use of web technologies the content and the way it is presented feel original to me. It is very interesting, humbling and inspiring to hear and read the comments people have shared as they have been asked questions about family, happiness, tears, love and more.The available languages are currently English, Italian and French.

This is one of those sites that I hope to come back to for that occasional dose of global perspective.

http://www.6billionothers.org

Enjoying Slacker.com – effortless music

I’ve gently used various online music services such as Pandora or Last.FM in the past but none of them have stuck for me.
In some recent reading I came across the slacker.com service again. I originally read about slacker.com in March on various sites like Wired and Engadget. While I didn’t take the time then to check out the site I have done so recently and have been impressed. The service seems to fit the way I listen to music and does a nice job grouping together the right types of music and artists when creating your own stations.

I’m also intrigued by the notion of a portable player that works with the service. The portable player would be filled with music based upon your preferences and would automatically be updated when the player is able to access the service via WIFI. Nice. No need to add music yourself, update playlists, etc.

When I listen to music I am typically doing so in one of two roles. I am either digging for some good nostalgia tunes, or looking up something new in one genre or another. As I mentioned before the way I listen to music seems to fit the slacker.com model.

If the portable player isn’t enough they are also planning to compete with the Satellite set.

I did a search for Roger Clyne and hit ‘play’ which results in a station of like artists. I don’t think slacker.com did a bad job of building the station especially considering that Roger Clyne does not fit any traditional genre very tightly, but mixes into many of them. The screenshot below is the result of what has been playing for the last hour or so. Pretty Cool.

Ubuntu and Sprint EVDO

As I move along in making my Ubuntu install my own, and keep from reverting back to Windows, I am reaching some personal milestones.
Today I was able to get a Sprint EVDO PanTech PX-500 connected. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I was able to follow the directions in the Sprint documentation here. The KPPP (GUI) option did not work for me but the terminal based WvDial worked just fine.

Kudos to Sprint for creating Linux documentation for getting their devices connected.

Google Gears – awesome

Google Gears has been released and it seems to be a pretty pivotal application as the lines begin to blur between offline and online applications.
I tested Gears on Google Reader on Ubuntu and it worked without any hiccups.

I’ve also been following Dojo Offline and it appears they have been working to make Dojo offline work well with Google Gears.

This will be a very interesting space to watch.

ReadWrite Web wrote up a nice post, here.

Zonbu/Zonbox wants to be your $99 computer

Zonbu has put together the Zonbox. A $99 desktop computer with a very small form factor. In addition to the price appeal the Zonbox sports a linux OS and “comes with every program most people ever need”. The other major point of comparison with the traditional desktop computer is the Zonbox does not include, or need, a hard drive. The system runs off 4GB flash based local storage. This translates into no moving parts and what may be a pretty rugged box as a result. Finally the system also touts an efficient low power design which means safer for the environment and lighter on your wallet.

I really like what they are doing here. I especially appreciate the opportunity at another viable choice in the market. The low end PC, the over priced Apple and now the entry level Linux box, nice. In addition to the $99 cost of the hardware the system relies on a subscription service which gives you access to additional storage online in a few different plans ranging from 25GB to 100GB, or $12.99 – $19.95 per month for a 2 year plan. If you do the math the cost after the couple of years is about what you would pay for a middle of the road PC today.While the cost is nice I don’t see the cost as being the driver for buying such a box. A few drivers include support/replacement, software upgrades and no viruses (currently). The Zonbox also supports several peripherals.

Replacement information from the Zonbu site:

Free replacement Zonbox
In the unlikely event that your Zonbox fails within three years of purchase, let us know and we’ll send you a replacement Zonbox that very day (*). Just plug in your replacement Zonbox and immediately access your valuable data stored on the Zonbu service, with all of your preferences and settings intact. Once you’re back up and running, send us your old Zonbox. What could be easier?

That is really all I’ve got. I threw this post together pretty quick and will likely follow it up later with more thoughts around expansion and limitations. Pretty exciting though. Oh, check their demo here.

What do you think?

Easy Print to PDF in Ubuntu

I’m rarely connected to a printer with my laptop and had not dug into printing to PDF since moving to Ubuntu. I came across the following link to a tutorial for just such an operation and am happy to report that it works entirely as advertised. When you print to PDF you’ll find a PDF folder in your Home folder. The PDF folder will contain your printed page. Thanks ArsGeek and NewLinuxUser for the info.

ArsGeek – Free your inner geek » 5 steps to create a PDF printer (print to PDF) in Ubuntu

Ever wanted to print a document of just about any sort to a virtual printer that would then turn it into a PDF? It’s pretty easy to do in Ubuntu. In fact you’ll need just 5 steps and about as many minutes of your time to set this up.

Open Source Projects To Watch

Here is a list of 15 Open Source projects to watch. My recent adoption of Ubuntu Kubuntu has further fueled my interest in Open Source alternatives. I wish I was more secure in my knowledge of application development so I could contribute to the community. My goal will be to get to the point of contribution.

I have not tried any of the projects listed but will be looking into many of them and likely posting some feedback here.

Open Source Projects: 15 To Watch

Google Apps For Your Domain – Themes?

My wife had been using Yahoo for her personal email for a few years. After much persuasion I convinced her to move her primary email to Google via Google Apps For Your Domain. While it is certainly functional it ain’t very pretty. I wonder if Google will allow themes via the GAFYD start page?

I know it would be a headache to allow themes for those accounts that are actually hosting a company’s info due to colors, logo’s, etc. Our account is not color or logo specific at all.

If this feature is available now I’m sure not seeing it.

So, Google, if you could turn themes on for GAFYD start page it would really be appreciated. 🙂

Ubuntu Desktop Effects error

Since installing Ubuntu 7.04 I have wanted to enable the desktop effects but have been unable to do so.
The error displayed is shown below.

A Google search shows that many other folks are having the same issue.

The answer ended up being a change in the xorg.conf file, which I learned about while reading this thread in the Ubuntu forums.
Now to install Beryl and learn how to use it.