The perfect laptop sleeve for your new macbook air. :)Wonder Threads has come up with the Inter-Office laptop sleeve that looks a lot like the real thing, but is made of poly microfiber complete with red tabs and a neoprene lining.Via: MoCo Loco: MoCo Submissions
Just a random sampling of fun stuff I stumbled on while surfing the internets. Absolutely none of this is from any official campaign group. It's all pure fan art or folk based. |  |  |
He also added that "the Linux interface is ahead of other operating systems currently on the market for professional use."
Vista, for example, Microsoft's latest operating system, is being spurned by consumers who cite "concerns about its cost, resource requirements, and incompatibility with their existing applications," according to InformationWeek.com."
[...]
Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop.
This is what advertisers don't yet understand - but will - or they will cease to exist.
News outlets should come to understand this concept, too.
Talk down to your audience at your own risk.
Thanks, Hugh.
Raise the barre or die.
From: T-Mobile Turns Off Twitter?"T-Mobile would like to bring to your attention that the Terms and Conditions of service, to which you agreed at activation, indicate “… some Services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming. We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to Service, cancel or suspend Service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion." Therefore, T-Mobile is not in violation of any agreement by not providing service to Twitter. T-Mobile regrets any inconvenience, however please note that if you remain under contract and choose to cancel service, you will be responsible for the $200 early termination fee that would be assessed to the account at cancellation."
I’m a T-Mobile customer and testing the issue right now, although I have received sporadic updates as recently as last night. It would be quite astonishing if T-Mobile is blocking an opt-in text messaging service considering how common they are and T-Mobile’s relatively small market share in the U.S. However, it wouldn’t be the first time the company has been at loggerheads with a third party service. Earlier this year, T-Mobile blocked VOIP-based free calling service Truphone, but eventually lost in court.There's an bit more including some responses from twitter on it at the interesting customer empowerment site getsatisfaction.com.
Western Digital's 1TB MyBook external hard drives won't share media files over network connections (UPDATE: Don't install the "required" client software! See workaround below). From the product page:"Due to unverifiable media license authentication, the most common audio and video file types cannot be shared with different users using WD Anywhere Access."
It doesn't matter what the files are: If you try to share these formats over a network, Western Digital assumes not just that you're a criminal, but that it is its job to police users. You see, MP3, DivX, AVI, WMV and Quicktime files are copy-protected formats.
The list of banned filetypes includes more than thirty extensions. Some of them are bizarre: .IT files are banned — these are Amiga-style music modules composed with Impulse Tracker, a particularly well-loved tracking sequencer that hasn't been updated in almost a decade. I composed with IT myself, back in the day, and still have all my shitty compositions, none of which Western Digital would have me share. (Try MOD vs. Speak&Spell masterpiece Eddie Dreams of Women, if you dare: IT, MP3)
Isn't it cute how the only data it views as worthy of policing are music and movies? These are the only copyrights that matter under corporate monkey law.
It's the most astonishing example of crippled equipment I've ever seen. A DRM'd hard drive! Whatever next? Dreaming meat?
Mmm.... Dreaming meat.
Wait... what the hell is wrong with Western Digital!?Number 3:Finally, DRM is dying
Ken Fisher: 2007 is the year of the infamous Steve Jobs open letter on DRM, the year that EMI got brave enough to kick DRM to the curb, and even Universal is considering the idea. I've long argued that DRM isn't about piracy, it's about selling your rights back to you. With the growing backlash against DRM, smart players are realizing that their customers don't want to be treated like thieves, even if the MPAA has the gall to suggest that they do. Yet, even the MPAA knows that customers are tired of seeing their fair use rights trampled, coming out earlier this year to call for a change in the industry.
DRM isn't dead yet, but the writing is on the wall. DRM for music will likely not last another year. DRM for video is another matter, as those players remain convinced that their products need protection. Once DRM dies in the music scene, however, the pressure will be on Hollywood to explain why it continues to trample on fair use.
The big disrupter: the iPhone
Eric Bangeman: I admire many of Apple's products—and I've been a Mac user for 22 years—but I also find myself irritated by some of the things the company does. But this year, I'm truly thankful for a game-changing product from Apple, the iPhone.
I've been a smartphone/PDA junkie for close to a decade and have used just about every mobile OS known to humankind during that time. The iPhone has truly made my life easier with its innovative UI, ease of use, and incredibly tight integration with Mac OS X (something no other smartphone has ever achieved). It makes me more productive (NewsGator's iPhone RSS interface is simply amazing), entertains me when I want to be entertained, and in its jailbroken form allows me to add extra functionality as I wait for official third-party apps to be released early next year.
The iPhone is significant not just because it is such a compelling product, however.The iPhone is sending a message to people at Apple and indeed everywhere that phone lock-ins aren't cool, and that the product can and will be made better by its community. In just a few short years, we'll look back and see how the iPhone caused a mobile revolution much like the BlackBerry did in the Enterprise.
A lot of people are asking me what I think about YouTube’s vague HD aspirations. My response is the same as to any other YouTube product announcement.
YouTube is an illicit organization built upon a self-destructive philosophy. This is not an academic point: all businesses depend on their philosophy. Whether that philosophy is determined though conscious design, or whether it accumulates randomly over the months, is the choice of the businesses’ leaders.
YouTube acts upon the premise that the creator does not have a right to his own creation. Claiming safe harbor under the DMCA is the cop-out of the decade. If they valued digital property rights, they would proactively delete stolen content.
Today, the quality of YouTube vids is so abysmal that it’s not an alternative to the iTunes Store or television. But releasing HD will bring YouTube one step closer to the legal decision that either cripples them or shuts them down entirely. It will only hasten the fury of the creators, both corporations and individuals, who hate seeing their hard work ripped off so that other corporations have a place to advertise. Both those groups have tremendous power: the corporations because they have billions of dollars, and the individuals because they’re creating the videos that are being watched in the first place and can easily post them elsewhere.
YouTube still has the opportunity to adopt a legitimate philosophy. They could adopt a policy of protecting the rights of the people who make videos. But do you really expect it from Steve Chen, who has uploaded two videos in the past 10 months, or Chad Hurley, who has zero videos? If you are a creator, these guys do not give a fuck about you, neither as a person nor as a demographic. They do not understand your values nor why you are valuable; why do you think this will change?
PS: I imagine they feel deeply guilty, consciously or subconsciously, about their current evil policies, and this explains their goofy non-profit “cause” efforts. If these guys truly want to “make a difference”, how about doing the right thing in the first place? One limp ‘right’ does not reverse the damage of a collosal ‘wrong’.
