January 2008 Archives

Our next meeting will be February 19th 2008, with Stuart Langridge (also known as Aq) of LUGRadio fame joining us for a talk about his experiences with free software.

• More information


• Let us know you're coming


• Do a lightning talk

How to get there

Manchester Digital Development Agency
Lower Ground Floor
117-119 Portland Street
Manchester
M1 6ED
UK

Forthcoming speakers also include Alex Hudson from Bongo and John Leach from Everybody Loves Eric Raymond/Brightbox Hosting.

In the past, we've had Matthew Bloch from Bytemark and Aidan McGuire from Blue Fountain.

I believe prefacing the term "Linux" with the term "GNU" serves the useful purpose of highlighting that GNU/Linux is a compound of many elements and has what many developers would term a "GNU Userland" wrapped around a "Linux kernel". That's why I have made it Sun's policy to refer to GNU/Linux when speaking of Linux-based operating system distributions, and it's why I encourage Nexenta to describe itself as "GNU/OpenSolaris"

Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems (source)

Ugh.

Qtrax files contain Digital [Restrictions] Management software, allowing the company to see how many times a song has been downloaded and played. Artists, record companies and publishers will be paid in proportion to the popularity of their music, while also taking a cut of advertising revenues.

The singer James Blunt gave Qtrax a cautious welcome. “I’m amazed that we now accept that people steal music,” he said. “I was taught not to steal sweets from a sweet shop. But I want to learn how this service works, given the condition the music industry is in.”

1. http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=platform&tab=myapps - remove everything apart from...


2. Photos, Events, Posted Items, Notes and Groups.


3. http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=platform&tab=ext


4. Remove anything here.


5. Save


6. http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=platform&tab=all


7. Select "Do not share any information about me through the Facebook API"


8. http://www.facebook.com/privacy.php?view=search


9. Under What Can People Do With My Search Results


10. 'See your picture' and 'Add you as a friend' should be ticked. The rest not.


11. Done.

Windows' Genuine Disadvantage

If you can, please help Digg this!

In 2008, the Free Software Foundation will be fighting DRM, abolishing software patents, and defending user freedom. Benjamin Mako Hill presents the case for supporting the FSF in this fight. They are just 120 members short of their fundraising goal of 500 new members or $100,000 by January 31.

School fingerprints lunch pupils

Catering staff at an Essex school are taking the fingerprints of pupils at lunchtime to ensure they get the meals their parents want them to eat.

Can somebody please enlighten me to this FlickrFan thing that Winer and Scoble are all over?

Tell me it's more than just some proprietary screensaver that downloads some photos from Flickr?

Please.

Best quote so far...

"Anyway, what does Dave Winer’s new software do? It puts pictures up on my HDTV. “Huh, that’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” I can hear you saying. But didn’t you also say that about Twitter? About IM? About the PC itself back in 1977? Yeah, yeah, you did, own up to it." - Scoble

So, I have two questions:-

1. Why is this so amazing?


2. No, seriously. Why?

Please.

DO NOT WANT

Happy new year to you all! Kicking off 2008 with a couple of links. I'm going to try and increase the number of links here, each day, so I can eventually provide you with 20 or so links a day.

• Sears infects customer computers with spyware


• Netflix and HD: a DRM disaster that costs you your videos and control of your hardware