General: July 2005 Archives

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Sed tincidunt. Look familiar?

I've noticed that quite a few bloggers have started putting Creative Commons licenses on their blogs. Considering the nature of blogs, with their links both in and out and cross-fertilisation I can understand why the CC license is attractive, but why do people make a conscious decision to include it? Do you think it makes any difference?

Site has been moved over to new server and seems to be working correctly. If anybody spots anything odd please let me know ASAP For the curious this new server is running Ubuntu stable instead of Debian. MySQL 4.1 and all the other "bits and bobs"

I'm about to move this blog to another server, so it may vanish for a couple of hours :)

Nominations for the 2005 IIA Netvisionary Awards are now open.

The launch of the 2005 Netvisionary Awards is this Wednesday evening in Clontarf Castle, Dublin. Free for IIA members. EUR25 for non-members. I'd love to meet up with people who are going :)

According to a post on a Hispanic blog, the latest Harry Potter is already available online, both the book and an audio version of it (read by a human no less) As the original post is in Spanish I'm providing my own translation below:

It took 12 hours for the fans of Harry Potter to publish an illegal electronic version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the latest and much awaited book about the young wizard written by JK Rowling. The process consists of scanning in the book's pages and digitising them using OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). After they proceed to the page by page revision (which is shared out) to ensure there are no errors before publishing it online. If this wasn't enough there is also an audio version of the book available on filesharing networks, read by a human not software. Why does this happen? the problem, for both the publisher and the author, is that being part of the information society is that if you don't make your work available and provide the required facilities, then someone else will. Not only will it happen,. but groups organise themselves in order to get them out as quickly as possible, as happened with the latest Harry Potter

David pointed out a very disturbing piece of tech news. It looks like DRM (digital rights management) is moving towards adding restrictions based on your monitor. Worrying? I would think so.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince late last night. I had intended to savour it over a couple of days, but I couldn't. Once I had started I found it impossible to put it down. Waking up this morning in the "real" world is quite depressing :) I'll try to post a proper review of the book later today. In the meantime I would urge you to get a copy if you haven't already! You can choose from the colourful children's edition: or the more sombre adult version:

Unless you prebooked your copy of the latest Harry Potter well in advance via Amazon there is no price advantage. Amazon UK is selling the book at the equivalent of EUR13.07 (before P & P), while all the local shops here are selling it at EUR12.99. It would probably make sense to buy it online if you were sending it as a gift to someone, but not if you were buying it for yourself. I picked up my copy in Carlow Bookshop yesterday. It was amusing to see the constant flow of people in and out of all the shops yesterday, all clutching their copies of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince Although I started reading it yesterday afternoon I am in no hurry to read it, so I won't be trying to beat any records on this occasion.

With only 3 days left until publication Harry Potter fever is about to strike! The nice people at Amazon are promising delivery to UK addresses if you order by midnight tonight: As always you can choose between the "adult" edition and the normal, children's one: From a marketing point of view the adult version is a brilliant idea, but surely a bit redundant at this stage? I know I'll be trying to grab a copy as soon as I can and I won't care which edition it is :) In yet another brilliant move they've setup a special area on their site where you can countdown to the release plus get loads of other snippets of information.

According to reports Ebay is to enter the Chinese market later this year. Considering the attitude the Chinese authorities have towards the "digital world" I doubt if this will be an easy market conquest for them, but only time will tell...

Bob Parson's latest blog entry caught my attention. Bob talks about how he did not "make it" the first time, or even the second. He lost fortunes before he finally made it. It may not teach you how he became a success, but it will show you that:

• You probably won't succeed the first time
• You are not alone
• You might succeed - he did

Edit: Thanks to John for pointing out the typo

According to an article on The Register, UK ISPs have been asked to retain data prior to last Thursday's attack as it is felt that the bombers may have coordinated their efforts electronically (a not unreasonable assumption). Although this request is reasonable it is a bit impractical:

• Does a common format for logs exist? - No
• What volume of data is involved?- an unknown, but the amount of data involved would be huge
• Will any of the data in space controlled by UK ISPs be of any use to investigators?

If an sms was sent from a non-UK phone on roaming in the UK, for example, which network would hold the logs? If you start throwing around scenarios with regard to the movement of traffic it can cause severe headaches. Although I'm sure ISPs will be more than happy to cooperate in any investigations any logs provided could take months to decipher..

I posted about issues with paying for goods online with laser a couple of months ago. Since then I have been in contact with CDwow, who assured me that they would resolve the matter. They haven't. Friday afternoon/evening is a good time for me to browse online shops such as cdwow and I would have handed over the bones of €100 today if their payment gateway had let me. It didn't :(

Alan has made available a vector map of Ireland for designers/webmasters to use. Brilliant!