Technology

Things that catch my geeky interests that don’t fall into a more specific tag.

The Blogger Voter List

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Mike Walsh, who inspired this recent post of mine, is starting to track the Blogger Voter List. He’s looking to keep a list of bloggers who, in essence, put their money where their mouth is, and vote as well as rant.

Remember, you can blog all you want about politicians and political issues but if you don’t vote, it doesn’t matter. And politicians only listen to registered voters. So register to vote, if you haven’t already, and then register on “The Blogger Voter List” so politicians and the people who manage political campaigns realize that bloggers (and people who read blogs) are a new force to be reckoned with.

He’s also looking for somone with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) experience to assist in coding a site to track this, so it doesn’t have to remain an updated-by-hand listing. I wish my knowledge were up to par, but unfortunately, that’s just not the case. Anyone else feel like stepping up to the plate?

Custom MT skins?

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Custom MT interface

So it appears that SocialDynamX, creators of FMRadio for Radio Userland (Disclaimer: I know nothing about either of these products) is working on creating a custom interface for MovableType.

First impression? Ugh, that’s horrid.

Now, I’m a little unclear from looking at their site as to whether that’s a replacment for the default MT interface that you see in your web browser (as is implied by the term “skin”), or whether it’s a seperate standalone program for posting to MT (such as Kung-Log, UserSpace or Zempt). If it’s a standalone program, then okay, it’s most likely Windows-based, and the horrid ugly interface makes sense. But if it’s a “skin” designed to replace the standard MT interface within the browser — why is it so verschluggene ugly?

I was going to go into more detail, but I’ve gotta head off to work, and I’m out of time. Judge for yourself, I guess. ;)

(via Scoble)

BuyTunes blows

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Earlier this week BuyTunes popped up attempting to capitalize on the success of the iTunes Music Store by moving the same general idea to the Windows platform.

So far, the word is that they suck.

I already knew that they were blatantly ripping off Apple’s ads. I’d link to the BuyTunes versions, but that brings up the second major issue: they’ve restricted their website to Internet Explorer for Windows only. Any other browser, and you get redirected to this page. So far, things weren’t looking very good.

Then Jennifer at ScriptyGoddess actually tried to use BuyMusic’s services. Let’s just say that she’s not a satisfied customer.

First problem. After you buy an album, you need to download it. Sure, I knew that. What I didn’t know is that you have to download EACH SONG INDIVIDUALLY. One click per song. With Two large sized albums with many songs on it – it can be just a LITTLE annoying.

[…]

Second problem. Before each song plays – it has to download and verify your license. You can’t mulitple select a bunch and do this. You need to do this before EACH SONG will play.

[…]

Third and VERY big problem. […] Since I’m using Windows200, they force you to use a windows media plugin…[that] CRASHES consistently EVERY time I try to burn a CD. It is simply impossible to create a cd from my machine using that plugin.

[…]

And here comes problem number four. The “Main” license is the one I downloaded the first time to my machine (the windows 2000 box with the defective Roxio plugin). Subsequent downloads are “secondary licenses” from which you are not allowed to transfer to a mobile device, burn a cd, or do ANYTHING with except listen to them on that one machine.

[…]

In walks problem number five. Here’s their oh-so helpful (probably computer generated) form letter to me…

We apologize if you have experienced trouble downloading your music to a digital media player or copying your music to a CD. Unfortunately, We are unable to provide technical assistance after you have downloaded the music from BuyMusic.com to your primary computer. In addition, we are unable to credit you back for failed or damaged copies once you have successfully downloaded the music to your primary computer.

Sounds like BuyMusic is bound to be a bust, to me.

About 'Noises'

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I wanted to take a moment to draw attention to the ‘Noises’ section of the sidebar to the left of this page. I’m tossing albums up there at more or less random intervals (often determined by what I’m listening to at any given point in the day). When I do, though, I’m highlighting three key tracks from the album and adding streaming audio ‘PLAY’ links to them, in addition to one for the full album.

The albums won’t stay up indefinitely, and the tracks aren’t downloadable (streaming only, sorry), but this should let anyone stopping by take a quick listen to whatever I’m recommending — and, of course, clicking through the picture lets you buy it from Amazon.

Enjoy!

Ah, the memories…

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Robert Scoble:

Kookaburra asks “will Longhorn eat RAM?”

My “official Microsoft approved answer”: too early to talk about minimum or recommended requirements. We probably won’t talk about minimum requirements until right before launch.

The answer I give my friends after they get me drunk: “yes.”

The rest of his answer is worth reading, where he explains his answer a bit more in depth, without running afoul of the Powers That Be at Microsoft. Still, this got me thinking about how much I miss the days when computers weren’t as powerful as they are now. Not because I’d like to go back to the days of 286’s and Motorola 68000 processors (ick), but because the limited resources forced programmers to weigh features against bloat, to code for small sizes as well as functionality, and so on.

The first computer I owned was a Mac Classic, with 1Mb RAM (that’s not a typo — one megabyte) and no internal hard drive. My senior year of high school, I did all my papers on that machine. I had two 1.4Mb floppys: one with System 6.0.7 to boot the computer, and one that had Microsoft Word v4 and every paper I wrote that school year.

Let me stress that: one floppy. Microsoft Word and every paper I wrote in a school year.

I miss that.

You know, as it stands right now, I won’t buy Microsoft Word. But if they could dig into their archives, pull out the source code for Word v4 for Mac and update it to run on Mac OS X, I’d pop down cash for that in a heartbeat. Best damn word processor I ever used, mainly because it was a word processor, not a over-priced, over-featured, kludgy, pain in the ass piece of bloatware with every conceivable feature tossed in merely because it could be.

But that’s just me.

Geeking about Dean

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I really wonder if there are people on the Howard Dean campaign who are tied in enough to the “geek” side of the blogosphere to realize how big of a deal it could be that Dean is getting mentioned prominently by Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, and Tom Negrino.

Much as Robert likes to claim he’s got all of 18 readers (which is about 12 more than I’ve got, I think), he, Doc, and Tom and his wife Dori Smith are some of the bigger names in the weblogging world. Robert’s one of the most well-known Microsoft webloggers and a Longhorn evangilist; Doc, among many other things, is the senior editor for Linux Journal; and Tom and Dori are Mac fans and authors of several technical books. Big names, getting Dean’s name out into tech circles. Could be a very good thing. If nothing else, it’s more exposure, but given the general tech bent of all three weblogs, Doc’s interest in copyright and media issues and Dean’s appearance on Lawrence Lessig‘s blog last week, I can’t help but think that there are possibilities here.

Make sure that Dean is kept current on some of the “geekier” political battles and can articulate his stances on those issues clearly (one of the issues I’ve read about the Lessig guest-blogger appearance was Dean’s perceived lack of a solid stance on many of the issues that Lessig’s core readership hold dear), and it could go a long way to solidifying Dean’s support among the tech set.

TrackBack spam? Grrrr…

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Well, here’s a first (for me, at least) — I just got TrackBack spam. One of the posts on my other site — this one, to be precise — just got a TrackBack ping (which I’ve just deleted) with no information other than a URL pointing to, of all places, the Thessaloniki Port Authority (http://www.thpa.gr/ — I’m not giving them the Googlejuice of a live link).

Bad enough that they used TrackBack to spam me, but the Thessaloniki Port Authority? That’s just wierd. And on a computer-related humor post, too. Just bizarre.

Squirrel Monkeys

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Two pieces of news broke in one day yesterday.

Item one: “Microsoft acknowledged a critical vulnerability Wednesday in nearly all versions of its flagship Windows operating system software…[which] could allow hackers to seize control of a victim’s Windows computer over the Internet, stealing data, deleting files or eavesdropping on e-mails.”

Item two: “The Homeland Security Department has chosen Microsoft Corp. as its preferred supplier of desktop computer and server software, according to a statement issued late Tuesday. …perhaps most important to Homeland Security’s mission to get agencies communicating more easily, Microsoft will provide the standard e-mail software for the entire department.”

I loved Jeffrey Zeldman’s summary:

Let’s see what the government might have chosen in its effort to protect American lives from ruthless, technologically sophisticated terrorists:

UNIX, Linux
Inexpensive or free.
Requires some user knowledge.
Practically invulnerable to attack.
Mac OS
Costs money.
Easy to use.
Practically invulnerable to attack.
Windows
Costs money.
Easy to use.
Can be hacked by a squirrel monkey, thus is wide open to attack.
Produced by a company the Department of Justice found guilty of criminally abusing its monopoly power — a finding that is supposed to result in punishment, not in fat contracts bankrolled by taxpayers.

To the bureaucratic mind, the choice was obvious.

Sounds safe and secure to me.