LaserBlog.com

Recommendation:
I like this program for ripping MP3’s:
Easy CD Ripper
From their website:
“Easy CD Ripper is an all-in-one music tool for ripping and converting. As a piece of famous CD Ripper software, it extracts audio CD tracks to audio formats MP3, WAV, WMA, VQF, OGG, APE with excellent output quality and high ripping speed.

“Besides professional ripping functions, it can clone CD bit by bit perfectly and supports MP3 ID3 V1/V2 edting, Free CDDB Submission, beautiful and changable skins, professional and user-friend interface, and much much more …”

Xingtones.com: Use any wav or mp3 from your computer as a ringtone on your phone.
via wired.

Tonight is the Linux Meetup all around the world. http://linux.meetup.com I’m goin’.
Other meetups: www.Meetup.com

This is the most assinine thing I’ve heard in weeks…
“LA officials call for end to master/slave labels“, Drives Offensive (@ the register)

“The computing world’s venerable master/slave naming convention has come under fire by Los Angeles county officials who charge that this type of product description is offensive.

“A discrimination complaint has been filed with the county’s Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after one county worker saw a video recording device with the “slave” and “master” tags, according to Reuters. The complaint was enough to call county officials into action, asking vendors to re-label their gear. “

Read More…

“Microsoft plays hardball with Dutch Lindows resellers” – “Dutch Lindows resellers are accusing Microsoft of intimidation, after several received phone calls from the software giant seeking meetings to “avoid” legal action…” (from TheRegister.co.uk)

As if you didn’t know, but just in case you didn’t:

The two best spyware-detection (and removal) programs out there are free. They are:

Ad-Aware – http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
&
SpyBot Search And Destroy – http://spybot.eon.net.au/

ALSO, fyi you can really good VIRUS protection software for free, it’s called AVG:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

Now, this really scares me. I read this on the internet via my cell phone:

“Computer administrator Bret McDanel discovered a security flaw in his company’s software. He warned his managers. They ignored his pleas. So he quit and fired off thousands of e-mails alerting customers to the problem. The vulnerability at Tornado Development Inc. finally got fixed. But McDanel was charged and convicted of causing damage under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.” Read the whole story at NewsDay.com: here.

This was also discussed on Slashdot,
here (“Talk About A Security Hole, Go To Jail?”)
and
here (“Feds Admit Error In McDanel Security Case”).

I’m glad the feds amitted the error, but it’s still scary because this could happen to any of us.

Update: A few sentances in the Newsday article really bother me;
“McDanel was convicted in a nonjury trial on June 25, 2002.”
Why didn’t he have a JURY trial???
…and,
“Would-be whistleblowers also need to worry about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which restricts discussion of technology used to protect digital content.”
Restricts discussion of? What ever happened to free speech?
I’m about ready to go build a log-cabin in the wodds and grow my own food and never come back to “society”. Geezus!

Drool…..

Fujitsu P 1000

Tiny, super-light (2.2lb), touchscreen, built-in WiFi…. sigh…..

/techgasm

A few things bear repeating:

If you are a fan of “toycams” or pencams or any tiny, cheap, digital camera (like the Aiptek Mini Pencam; Aiptek Pencam SD, Aiptek Pocket DVII, etc.), I highly recommend this yahoo group: the Tinycans Yahoo Group. Very active, very nice and helpful people, lots of useful help/info re. tinycams.

Also, Spamex.com: Create an email alias for EACH instance that you have to give out an email address (to anyone but a personal friend) so that if/when you start getting spam at that alias, you just TURN IT OFF! I’ve been using the service for over a year now and it is worth 100x the money I pay for it (CHEAP!).

Ever wonder what the difference was between and SD card and an MMC card? Here.

RFID tags: Big Brother in small packages:
Could we be constantly tracked through our clothes, shoes or even our cash in the future? read article on cnet…

From Slashdot:

“Bootsy Collins writes “In a brief article, Computer Business Review Online quotes Darl McBride as saying that SCO has been busily identifying Linux end users and is preparing to launch lawsuits against them in order to encourage more such end users to buy licenses from SCO. SCO indicates that they’ll start with a company that uses AIX, Dynix and Linux, so as to ’settle several legal arguments in one go.’” Not everyone is going to take the SCO approach sitting down; read on for a story on how (among others) Weta Digital and [New Zealand's] Massey University aren’t jumping to say Uncle to SCO.” READ MORE…

I would have liked to get my high-speed internet from my small, local ISP, but noOOOOooo… “FCC Abandons Linesharing, Kills DSL Competition” This stinks, as I’d like to support the little guy, plus, the local ISP I like is a friend, and a really active guy who is fighting for online privacy, fighting spam, etc. Oh well.

I happened upon this at the Tech TV website: The list of Kazaa users (and ISP’s) that the RIAA want to target/sue. I asked M why these people even have user ID’s, because when I use Kazaa it just says “user@kazaa”, and supposedly it’s because we use Kazaa Lite.

Nala posted an interesting thing about disposeable DVD’s. It’s a good read, and an important one if you care about the environment.

Are you a tech addict? I might be.

This whole SCO thing (link via slashdot) is pissing me off.

They (SCO) claim that somebody used their proprietary unix code in the open-source Linux, but they won’t share what code that is unless whomever they show it to signs a non-disclosure agreement. Therefore, IF the prolem exists at all, it’s unfixable, enabling them to continue to use scare-tactics and sue people.

They’re suing companies left and right for using said code, but not actually saying WHAT code! They’re using the scare-tactics to sell “rights” to using Linux which has their supposed stolen code embedded in it. They have no legal right to sell licenses to use Linux, which is open-source!

The whole thing is like a mafia-tactic. See, if they had a leg to stand on, they’d share what code was supposedly stolen. The fact that they won’t share it without the viewer signing a non-disclosure agreement is proof alone that they are full of shit.

On 6-30-03 Linus Torvalds (creater of Linux) commented on this.

Also, 7-4-03: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6237239.htm via Konduct.

I saw in a customer review of the Nokia 3650 a guy said this:

“1000s of games and apps which also gives the possibility to find 3rd party apps that are better than the standard ones. For instance, the standard camera has no zoom but I found a program that has 16 x digital zoom! And also the standard video recorder has a 10 seconds recording limit but I found this app that has no limitations whatsoever so I can record movies as long as I have memory storage on my 128 MB MultiMediaCard!”

I’d like to find some of those apps!

Check out this weird one-handed keyboard, called a Frogpad. It’s a USB keyboard.

This is amazing! I was searching for “nokia 3650 keyboard” because i was wondering if I could buy an external keyboard for my new camera-phone, and came across this very interesting thing, a laser-projected keyboard, just type away on your tabletop:

The Projection Keyboard Actually Works!

This whole SCO vs. Linux thing has me confused. The more I read, the less I understand.

I am just loving this BlogPluck! It’s awesome!

Want to learn more about lasers? Laser Fantasy is the company that supplies the laser shows for our planetarium. You can view clips here, although of course their BEST work is on display here.

I think this is BS. I don’t think this guy should have been charged.

Use
Spybot Search & Destroy and/or
Ad-Aware
to find and eliminate spyware from your computer.

Hey, this is pretty cool: a tiny digital camera, 3.1 mp, totally small, absolutely thin. Not too pricey either. gSmart Mini 3 Digital Camera

Wow! These are so cool! CD-R’s that look like old 45’s!

How fast IS your internet connection, really?
Bandwidth Place speed test || MSN speed test || Telus.net speed test || Toast speed test
(above via TechTv article)
Dsl Reports speed test

Speaking of War Driving, I saw this article in my NewzCrawler “breaking news” window this morning: Commuters hack wireless networks

P.S. I must thank Christine for turning me on to RSS and NewzCrawler.

(I downloaded NewzCrawler and am playing w/ it.) And NOW for some reason I don’t have to click on the titles to see the whole post. Hmm.