Convalesco

Today I bought another famous book one of my two favourite authors. I really don’t know why it took me so long to get this book. The title is Crime and Punishment. It’s one of the most famous titles of the author. Although my favourite book from Fyodor Dostoevsky is The Gambler is not half famous Crime and Punishment is. I’m eager to start reading it! The story is divided in two books. I disliked the hard copies that I got though. I had to order the book through a bookstore, I told to the salesman that I’m interested in the hard copy looks and he said that he will do his best to find the most decent. I’m sure he did try, but the copies I got are ugly. He said that the other ones available were even better and older. I live in Greece remember? That’s the silly drawbacks!

Since I bought my iPod Touch I was looking for a way to convert my music videos, 606 in the number, to the m4v format in order to use them with the iPod. I like watching music videos! My favourite this period is “What goes around comes around” featuring Justin Timberlake and Scarlett Johansson, directed by and written by Nick Cassavetes.

Now the easiest way to create m4v files out of mpeg or avi’s is using Quicktime Pro on Macintosh. However, the conversion is slow as hell on my iBook G4 plus the fact that I don’t have all the video’s that YouTube has on my HD! Now I can download the latest music and import it directly to my iPod Touch through TubeTV! This smart application is a YouTube browser for MacOSX that supports m4v conversion, among others, for traditional iPods. I already downloaded a few Greek video’s for my iPod! The only frustrating thing is that I have to install them through iTunes, but that’s a small drawback.

UPDATE: Well although the above is a good solution the ripping takes time and the quality of most video’s is poor. I can deal with the ripping, but I hate watching low quality videos on my iPod Touch!

/>So, I bought my iPod Touch, and I’m all fancying around now! The fact is that it is really amazing and I couldn’t expect more for such an astonishing device. I was reading everything about the iPhone Hacks and the applications that needs an unlock in order to run. Then I crossed web sites like appsafari and see how many applications are there for iPhone and the iPod Touch. There is a huge market of applications, I’m not sure if these apps are all free for download or licensed. However, what I need to to do in order to run them is unlock the iPod Touch, which is completely absurd! It’s like having thousands of possibilities, thousands of potential clients, a potential market for your specific device and shouting the door? Why?! Does Apple remember the 90’s? As cosmix writes, Apple is kinda suicidal when it comes to choosing paths and policies. Something that hurts the fantastic mac community, which is similar and close to open source - alias GNU/Linux - community. It’s clear the Steve Jobs have much more close ideas then his nemesis, Bill Gates

The forthcoming release of N810 could turn the iPhone into a dunce! I don’t want to compare a Google’s Android to the iPhone because I don’t know if it’s a direct competitor. In order to avoid that, Apple released the much expected iPhone SDK and for what? Just to keep our iPod Touch and iPhones locked? Where’s the advantage of such policy? I was sceptic about Apple’s behaviour now and I’m urged as an iPod Touch user now! It’s almost sure that I’ll use software to unlock the device and run applications on it. It’s half the value without 3rd party app’s. I will buy music with no DRM from amazon’s on-line store and you know what? I’d like for my iPod touch to have with amazon’s store the integration that I have with iTunes! Why not? Owning an iPod makes me an Apple user? No! That’s why they created an iTunes version for windows (Where is the Linux version?).

I can’t understand why Jobs keeps acting like a total idiot when it comes to locking operating systems and devices, while Apple has gain so much from the open standards every time the company embraced them. Money are good. No one can live without them. But when a company pursues them carelessly makes it’s customers, the vital source of the company, worry. A company’s life is strictly dependant on the sales. If the quality is low and the production sucks, it can survive. If the company doesn’t sale it’s product it will seize to exist.

So now, I have to hack my device to make it do what I want to! How great! Some of you may think: “Hey you knew that before getting the gadget!” well, yes I knew it, but I needed an iPod and decided to go for the big ride. I already ordered my next mobile phone, which against my former decisions, it will not be the iPod but something slightly less sophisticated. I didn’t want to wait for N810 to hit the Greek market. I dislike it’s design anyway, but I could try it out because it’s Linux and the SDK is already there.

Σήμερα έφτασε το iPod Touch που παρήγγειλα από το expansys πριν από 28 ώρες. ΥΑΥ!! Έφτασε σώο και αβλαβές, ενώ το ευχάριστο με αυτήν την εταιρία είναι ότι παρότι Ευρωπαϊκή έχει κατάστημα Paypal. Προτιμώ να έχει τον αριθμό της πιστωτικής μου το Paypal παρά ένα οποιοδήποτε website.

Το Touch Είναι τρομακτικό και απίστευτα λειτουργικό. Για μια ακόμη φορά η Apple έκανε αυτό που ξέρει να κάνει καλά εδώ και χρόνια, απλοποίησε την τεχνολογία στο όριο του δυνατού. Αυτοί που έχουν πολύ χοντρά δάχτυλα ίσως δυσκολευτούν μέχρι να συνηθίσουν την τεχνολογία του. Παρόλα αυτά παραμένει άκρως λειτουργικό. Οι πρώτες εντυπώσεις σε κερδίζουν αφού η σχεδίαση του είναι άψογη. Δεν έχω το iPhone, αλλά στα reviews που διαβάζω στο Internet από bloggers, το iPod Touch είναι ομορφότερο σε ότι αφορά το design. Λοιπόν, αυτή η συσκευή συγχρονίζεται τέλεια με το iBook αλλά και οποιοδήποτε Mac, πράγμα που για εμένα είναι χρήσιμο. Συγχρονίζεται όμως και το κινητό μου. Σε μερικές ημέρες περιμένω μάλιστα την καινούρια μου συσκευή, η οποία αν και δεν είναι iPhone είναι συγκρίσιμη με αυτό. Δεν ξέρω τι εξέλιξη θα έχει και κατά πόσο θα κάνω εκτεταμένη χρήση του. Πάντως η δυνατότητα να βλέπω τα αγαπημένα μου σήριαλ οπουδήποτε είναι ενδιαφέρουσα. Επίσης, οι λειτουργίες που έχει μου φαίνονται αρκετές έτσι ώστε να αφήσω πίσω το iBook σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις, σίγουρα είναι φανταστικός φίλος για ταξίδια κτλ.

I was looking for a blog client for Gnome. Well I found out Mudawin which seems to be decent. Another valid alternative for a Movable Type blog is PyQLogger but is based on QT and I don’t feel comfortable mixing things. I use a Gnome desktop which is the Ubuntu default DE, and I’d like to stick with GTK+ applications. Mudawin is JRE, which means Java, it needs a jre binary and you’re all set. I did not have the time to try it yet. I did not any other valid alternative. If you have Ubuntu you can find Drivel in your which supports: wordpress, bloggers, journal and few other main blog providers. It lacks of important features though and does not play with mephisto’s XML-RPC.

Το TorrentFreak δημοσίευσε πρόσφατα μια συνέντευξη φωτιά για ο πως λειτουργεί η παγκόσμια πειρατική σκηνή. Πως φτάνουν από οι ταινίες από το Hollywood στα δίκτυα P2P. Αυτήν την στιγμή η MPAA έχει ως στόχο κυρίως τα Torrent Trackers. Τα trackers όμως αποτελούν το τέλος της πυραμίδας ενώ δεν χρειάζονται και ιδιαίτερες γνώσεις για την δημιουργία τους. Το θέμα είναι από ξεκινάει το leeching. Από την δική μου εμπειρία και γνωριμία (δικτυακά και μόνο) με πειρατές, μπορώ να πω ότι η παραπάνω δημοσίευση από το TorrentFreak είναι λίγο περίεργη.

Το σίγουρο είναι ότι τα early releases φτάνουν πρώτα στα usenets κι έπειτα στα Torrents και από εκεί στα διάφορα άλλα P2P (Emule, Limewire, κτλ). Σε ότι αφορά τα TopSites με τους FTP servers κτλ. Δεν γνωρίζω αν όντως υπάρχουν και λειτουργούν με αυτόν τον τρόπο που περιγράφει ο Site-Op. Αλλά είναι λίγο περίεργο που το ότι δίνει τόσες πληροφορίες με τόσο προκλητικό τρόπο στην δημοσιότητα. Μοιάζει να αντιμετωπίζει την κατάσταση σαν παιχνίδι. Δεν είναι καθόλου διασκεδαστικό να σε κυνηγάει ο μεγαλύτερος (σε τζίρο) συνασπισμός εταιριών των Η.Π.Α. . Προτάσεις όπως:

We, as Site-ops, have no fondness for The Pirate Bay. We do not want to talk to the press because it pressures the police to focus on us. As a software programmer I dislike file sharing, because of the small companies that suffers from it. Members of the Scene learn a lot and find it to be a fun experience. The top Sceners buy the music and the movies on DVD anyway.

Μόνο γελοίες μπορούν να χαρακτηριστούν. Ούτε λίγο, ούτε πολύ μας λέει ότι δεν “κλέβει” αυτός, κλέβουν όμως οι άλλοι. Αυτός τις αγοράζει τις ταινίες γιαυτό έχει σπίτι του γραμμή η οποία του επιτρέπει να κατεβάσει (περίπου) 4GB το λεπτό. Ο τύπος ή δεν υπάρχει ή είναι αθεράπευτα ηλίθιος.

Σε όποιον ενδιαφέρει αυτή η σκηνή, γιατί εμένα με αφήνει παγερά αδιάφορο, υπάρχει κι ένα on going σήριαλ. Παρακολούθησα τα πρώτα επεισόδια, όταν είχε βγει. Είναι έξυπνη ιδέα και περιγράφει αρκετά καλά το όλο concept. Λέγεται Welcome to the Scene. Όσο μπορείτε να κατεβάζετε από “κλειστούς” trackers και να προσέχεται γιατί, οι “αρχές”, υπόδουλες στην βουλή της κάθε εταιρίες, δεν ψάχνουν να βρουν τον πειρατή που έχει τα terrabytes, ούτε αυτόν που τα πουλάει σε άλλους. Ψάχνουν να βρουν το θύμα κι αυτό μπορεί να είναι οποιοσδήποτε κατεβάζει mp3’s από το διαδίκτυο. Δηλαδή όλοι

I never was a strong supported user-friendly distributions. Having had bad time with Mandriva and Redhat in the past, while doing whatever I wanted to with Gentoo which is considered much more hardcore, I decided never again to go for an easy to use Linux distribution. The major problem with Gentoo however, was the lack of time. When I start working for more than 8 hours per day, many days in front of a computer at work, I was not having fun with my home computer anymore. I bought a Mac and my life turned easier in many ways. Although I consider my self an advanced linux user, in the sense of a user who knows where and how to find help when he has an issue, I was not having fun anymore with Linux and I didn’t want to waste my time in troubleshooting. Whoever tells you that Linux is not about troubleshooting, well he is not using it like I did. Being part of a community you want to try things, not a computer that just works.

On the other hand, when I took the Mac I had a UNIX powered, idiot-proof computer. I fell for the macs and the community. I found a community that was way more innovative, with much more genuine ideas than any other. Although it may look similar, the Macintosh communities are way different than the Linux ones. Even between Linux communities you can see quite different behaviour. It’s not the same posting on a Slackware mailing list and posting an issue on the Gentoo forums for instance. The Gentoo forums kept a steady and very new-be oriented policy since day one. While other distributions decided to keep the elite and let the other users drawn. Of course the users behaviour doesn’t depend on the Linux distribution, but some distributions, reflect the users level and (not rarely) style and thinking.

I was somewhere in the middle. Among the two categories, sometimes I was trolling over poor newcomers and (thankfully) most of the times I was helping if and when I could. That was until 2004 though. Afterwards I started to avoiding communities and Linux related issues. And the truth is that since then I’m losing much more time in programming in Objective C, Python, Bash or (now learning) Ruby. But I didn’t waste much time in linux. I turned my home server from Gentoo to OpenBSD in order for it, to be stable and not require often updates. I met the OpenBSD community too. Talking about narrow-minded people? Take a look at the OpenBSD community. They blame and talk bad about everything else, while it’s widely known that OpenBSD fails miserably as a Desktop computer. Most of them are expert users, geeks you could say, programmers and hardcore computer users. It’s the entire OpenBSD project that keeps it’s elite attitude and the users just follow the guidelines the developers give. Theo De Raadt is not an easy guy. You may say that Steve Jobs is not easy as well, but he hardly affects the macintosh community in the way Theo does affect the OBSD community. Enough with OpenBSDers!

Having said the above, I never thought that Linux could turn so user friendly and usable in so little time. The Ubuntu community is really good. The documentation seems to be complete and the final result astonishing. The installation is easy, the migration from windows is easy too. You will not avoid the command line if you have troubles, lets say with your printer, which is a major drawback for a normal user. The look and feel in Ubuntu 7.10 is greatly improved. I still dislike the fonts though. In my computer ( 2.6 Ghz, 512 RAM, 300 GB HD) Ubuntu runs really fast and the eye-candies run smoothly as well. It’s easy to install Greek or other languages, it’s easy to install and uninstall applications. It seems that Linux made some huge improvements over the past two years that I don’t really use it anymore. Plus, Ubuntu seems to have very good interoperability among the standard programs, which you can see in the Synaptic Package Manager with the Ubuntu icon on the left. The programs don’t break, just work and that’s really what the average user needs to know. If they try to put the entire freshmeat.net directory into the distribution they will not be able to improve this interoperability that is very important for the end user experience. The network configuration is done automagically if your computer is connected to the Internet via ADSL or Cable. The only thing that I found annoying is the IPPoverHTTP printer configuration. Still didn’t solve it. Then I missed an application launcher like MacOSX’s Quicksilver. I’ve fount the alt+f2 shortcut which seems to be pretty nice. Not even close to what QS can do, but still a good application launcher!

It’s the first time since 2004 that I’m seriously thinking to switch my main desktop to Linux again. The 24” inches screen makes it a tempting move, the Ubuntu Linux distribution makes it possible at a good point. I can’t create good brochures without Apple’s Pages, but for the rest, it seems to be good. Not as good as an iMac but quite goood

Apparently, today my new blog (the one you’re reading) had a downtime of a couple of hours. Now, I never had issues with Pair. That’s very unfortunate. Let’s hope that it will be an isolated event.

You might know what Facebook is. Another web 2.0 social network. Just another one. Being on line since 2002 almost constantly for the sake of GNU/Linux back then and now for bloging, working and building on line applications for fun. Well facebook goes beyond that. It’s worthy. It has a big enough database for you to find friends and relatives(!) you’ll be surprised if you take a look at how many people took the time to create a profile there. It’s the only web 2.0 application that gave me the impression of a huge potential. I never liked MySpace that much. So if you are into communities and things like that, take a look at it. You may be positively surprised by the result. As for me, I just created my profile after a friends invitation and I liked it!

The famous TOR privacy network was thought to be secure and safe. Well, TOR was meant to hide the routing but not the traffic that goes through. As reported to the article at hackzine there are many ways to expose your self when using technologies like encryption. You see, the implementation with the specific use makes these technologies tricky. If you don’t use them as they should be used you get compromised easily. Another thing that users who make extensive use of cryptography must keep in mind is that most people, don’t use it, so when you do, you attract attention. There are more sophisticated methods of cryptography like steganography that suit better, if you ask me, for message exchange through insecure channels such as the internet.