10 Types Of People

Stop Online Piracy Act, Protect IP Act, Digital Economies Act.

All sound like good things, don’t they? You’d have to be a pirate, thief or criminal of some sort to oppose one of these things yeah?

Of course you would. Or, that’s what we are told. You can’t oppose this legislation, it protects people. That is what we are told time and time again. Well, we shall not fall for that. We shall not be bullied into agreeing with your crappy rules that make no sense.

In America, there is a big fight happening about the SOPA and PIPA legislations that are trying to be pushed through into law. And last year, in Britain, the DEAct was pushed through in the run up to the 2010 General Election. We are told that these will protect jobs. They will protect legitimate jobs, and punish those who do wrong. Now, there are 2 main issues here:

• Piracy costs money and jobs

This is the second issue people normally come to when we come across this issue, but IMO, it is the main one. There are a number of people who pirate things

1. Those who can’t afford.
2. Those who don’t want to pay because they feel entitled to content.
3. Those who are against the “man”.
4. Those who can afford but want to try it out first.

For both 2 and 3, these people will never pay. If they didn’t get the things illegally, they wouldn’t pay. They never will. There is no point in fighting these people because either they will continue to get your stuff or they won’t. Lost causes, all of them. And yeah, I agree that these people are doing wrong things. But theres no point. Such a waste of time and money.

For 1, the only way to solve this is by giving them more money. So stop wasting money on ridiculous bills like this.

For number 4, they are the people who spend more money on content than people who don’t pirate. They already give you loads of money, and they aren’t going to give you more if they can’t get their tasters. They might even spend less.

So, basically…I don’t believe that piracy costs money or jobs. If you can prove that people would buy it if they can’t get it illegally, then I’ll retract my statement. But I think its rubbish.

• We have to break the internet

This is the other issue. Which, to be honest, is kinda moot after my last statement. But even if you do take the stance that it needs to be stopped, for goodness sake think about this properly. This is whack-a-mole. You can’t get rid of these sites by breaking DNS (and no matter what Lamar Smith says, this is breaking DNS) at all. You have to go after the route cause. Most films are pirated before they are even released in the cinema. How does this happen? Inside jobs. Go after your own people for goodness sake.

I’m a man with a website that has copyrighted material. My domain disappears. What happens? Most of my clients are clever enough to find ways around it. And if they aren’t, well…I set up another domain, or I tell people an IP address to get to. Etc etc. They are probably all following me on twitter, Facebook, google+, identica, etc. Think you can stop this by taking domains off the internet? Really? In that case you are insane.

In summary…there is no need to do this, and even if there is, this is the wrong way to go. For goodness sake, spend all that money you are spending this on important things. The American government could spend the money on getting rid of their TRILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT. And the industries could spend the money on making better films? Or maybe helping people who are starving in this world while you are worrying about a few 15-year-old getting a free copy of your film. Boo hoo for you.

My main point is, stop with these Bill names that are a way of saying “This is good, no matter what it says, if you oppose it you are a criminal.” I’m fed up of it.

Stop Online Piracy Act, Protect IP Act, Digital Economies Act. All sound like good things, don't they? You'd have to be a pirate, thief or criminal of some sort to oppose one of these things yeah? Of course you would. Or, that's what we are told. You can't oppose this legislation, it protects people. That is what we are told time and time again. Well, we shall not fall for that. We shall not be bullied into agreeing with your crappy rules that make no sense. In America, there is a big fight happening about the SOPA and PIPA legislations that are trying to be pushed through into law. And last year, in Britain, the DEAct was pushed through in the run up to the 2010 General Election. We are told that these will protect jobs. They will protect legitimate jobs, and punish those who do wrong. Now, there are 2 main issues here: Piracy costs money and jobs This is the second issue people normally come to when we come across this issue, but IMO, it is the main one. There are a number of people who pirate things Those who can't afford. Those who don't want to pay because they feel entitled to content. Those who are against the "man". Those who can afford but want to try it out first. For both 2 and 3, these people will never pay. If they didn't get the things illegally, they wouldn't pay. They never will. There is no point in fighting these people because either they will continue to get your stuff or they won't. Lost causes, all of them. And yeah, I agree that these people are doing wrong things. But theres no point. Such a waste of time and money. For 1, the only way to solve this is by giving them more money. So stop wasting money on ridiculous bills like this. For number 4, they are the people who spend more money on content than people who don't pirate. They already give you loads of money, and they aren't going to give you more if they can't get their tasters. They might even spend less.   So, basically...I don't believe that piracy costs money or jobs. If you can prove that people would buy it if they can't get it illegally, then I'll retract my statement. But I think its rubbish. We have to break the internet This is the other issue. Which, to be honest, is kinda moot after my last statement. But even if you do take the stance that it needs to be stopped, for goodness sake think about this properly. This is whack-a-mole. You can't get rid of these sites by breaking DNS (and no matter what Lamar Smith says, this is breaking DNS) at all. You have to go after the route cause. Most films are pirated before they are even released in the cinema. How does this happen? Inside jobs. Go after your own people for goodness sake. I'm a man with a website that has copyrighted material. My domain disappears. What happens? Most of my clients are clever enough to find ways around it. And if they aren't, well...I set up another domain, or I tell people an IP address to get to. Etc etc. They are probably all following me on twitter, Facebook, google+, identica, etc. Think you can stop this by taking domains off the internet? Really? In that case you are insane.   In summary...there is no need to do this, and even if there is, this is the wrong way to go. For goodness sake, spend all that money you are spending this on important things. The American government could spend the money on getting rid of their TRILLION DOLLARS OF DEBT. And the industries could spend the money on making better films? Or maybe helping people who are starving in this world while you are worrying about a few 15-year-old getting a free copy of your film. Boo hoo for you. My main point is, stop with these Bill names that are a way of saying "This is good, no matter what it says, if you oppose it you are a criminal." I'm fed up of it.

I’m not going to go into too much detail about the actual subject and what it all means technologically and everything. If you want to know about that, there are plenty of places to look, and if you don’t know about it at all then please go read something about it before you read this, otherwise it won’t make much sense.

Essentially, Chrome will no longer support h.264 within html5 video tag, out of the box.

I was listening to This Week in Google, episode 77, and listening to what they were saying about this. Something that Kevin Marks said made me think. He said “If you want to make a device cheaper, you reduce the number of things you have to pay for.”, and then my mind floated back to Chrome OS, the operating system built on a linux, and offering only a web browser. Many people think that Google will over very cheap, possibly free, netbooks and laptops with Chrome OS on it.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going. What would be their biggest expensive with developing that (apart from the hardware and the man-power)? Any licenses they have to pay for – h.264.

I think this might be part of their long term plan, as well as trying to force the internet towards the webm format, they are planning on making very cheap netbooks with chromeos on it. So, they make sure people try chrome, people end up liking it, then they take out h.264, as people still like Chrome, and the internet eventually switches away from it, as the only browsers that use h.264 are  Opera IE and Safari just now, which have pathetic amounts of market share.

**EDIT** Thanks to kabniel for noticing that Opera, infact, does not support h.264 **EDIT**

On the other hand, I frankly think its a stupid move. Openness includes being allowed to use non-open format, in my opinion. If you make people use open source stuff, that is not an open environment. It is as bad as Apple’s App Store terms…

Thats everything. Not a very long blog post, but just something that popped to mind and I thought I would share with the world

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the actual subject and what it all means technologically and everything. If you want to know about that, there are plenty of places to look, and if you don't know about it at all then please go read something about it before you read this, otherwise it won't make much sense. Essentially, Chrome will no longer support h.264 within html5 video tag, out of the box. I was listening to This Week in Google, episode 77, and listening to what they were saying about this. Something that Kevin Marks said made me think. He said "If you want to make a device cheaper, you reduce the number of things you have to pay for.", and then my mind floated back to Chrome OS, the operating system built on a linux, and offering only a web browser. Many people think that Google will over very cheap, possibly free, netbooks and laptops with Chrome OS on it. I'm sure you can see where I'm going. What would be their biggest expensive with developing that (apart from the hardware and the man-power)? Any licenses they have to pay for - h.264. I think this might be part of their long term plan, as well as trying to force the internet towards the webm format, they are planning on making very cheap netbooks with chromeos on it. So, they make sure people try chrome, people end up liking it, then they take out h.264, as people still like Chrome, and the internet eventually switches away from it, as the only browsers that use h.264 are  Opera IE and Safari just now, which have pathetic amounts of market share. **EDIT** Thanks to kabniel for noticing that Opera, infact, does not support h.264 **EDIT** On the other hand, I frankly think its a stupid move. Openness includes being allowed to use non-open format, in my opinion. If you make people use open source stuff, that is not an open environment. It is as bad as Apple's App Store terms... Thats everything. Not a very long blog post, but just something that popped to mind and I thought I would share with the world :-)

Very sensationalist title, don’t ya think? Well, I think it needs to be.

I am not going to say that there are many things that are leading to fragmentation, and the inevitable downturn of the free and open web, because thats not true. What is a worry, however, is some apps in the Chrome Web App store.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to say that the Chrome Web App store is bad, I don’t think it is. I think it is a great thing, that allows normal non-technical people a really easy way to find great web apps, and long may it continue.

The problem I think we have, is when some of these apps are integrated too tightly into Chrome. Lets take Tweetdeck web for an example. This is a fantastic HTML5 app that I have been using for the past week, it is fantastic, feels just like the desktop app, but uses a fraction of the system resources. However, it is ONLY a Chrome Web App. There is no way to get to this in any other browser. I don’t use chrome. I don’t like chrome, it doesn’t work how I would want it to work. Thats not going to change. So I can’t use it in what I want to use it in. What I would like, is to use Tweetdeck in a prism instance (which is a very low-powered and basically chromeless browser interface for this exact purpose)…but I can’t. I have to use it in Chrome.

This is the bad thing. This is getting back to the IE debacle. Where you made a website for IE, or for everything else. The web is, by definition, meant to be open, holding to standards set out by the W3C, and open to whoever wants to view it, on whatever they want to view it, when and where they want to. This is a feature that is killing this idea, because you can only view this in Chrome.

This needs to be fixed, but I don’t know how. Is Tweetdeck tightly integrated into Chrome? If so, what is it doing that other browsers can’t do? And if so, why aren’t they doing it?

I love the tweetdeck web app, and I am using it as we speak, but I want to use it in what I want, and there are a few other apps that are the same. I hope this trend doesn’t continue, but rather it reverses.

Very sensationalist title, don't ya think? Well, I think it needs to be. I am not going to say that there are many things that are leading to fragmentation, and the inevitable downturn of the free and open web, because thats not true. What is a worry, however, is some apps in the Chrome Web App store. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say that the Chrome Web App store is bad, I don't think it is. I think it is a great thing, that allows normal non-technical people a really easy way to find great web apps, and long may it continue. The problem I think we have, is when some of these apps are integrated too tightly into Chrome. Lets take Tweetdeck web for an example. This is a fantastic HTML5 app that I have been using for the past week, it is fantastic, feels just like the desktop app, but uses a fraction of the system resources. However, it is ONLY a Chrome Web App. There is no way to get to this in any other browser. I don't use chrome. I don't like chrome, it doesn't work how I would want it to work. Thats not going to change. So I can't use it in what I want to use it in. What I would like, is to use Tweetdeck in a prism instance (which is a very low-powered and basically chromeless browser interface for this exact purpose)...but I can't. I have to use it in Chrome. This is the bad thing. This is getting back to the IE debacle. Where you made a website for IE, or for everything else. The web is, by definition, meant to be open, holding to standards set out by the W3C, and open to whoever wants to view it, on whatever they want to view it, when and where they want to. This is a feature that is killing this idea, because you can only view this in Chrome. This needs to be fixed, but I don't know how. Is Tweetdeck tightly integrated into Chrome? If so, what is it doing that other browsers can't do? And if so, why aren't they doing it? I love the tweetdeck web app, and I am using it as we speak, but I want to use it in what I want, and there are a few other apps that are the same. I hope this trend doesn't continue, but rather it reverses.

Ok, so before anyone says anything, I know, only 1 of these products actually still exists as a product. The other 2 are opensource code that you can run on your own server, which don’t get me wrong is great, but they aren’t getting development at all now.

However, there are things I think Google should be doing with all these things that they aren’t, which I have said for a while would be great.

First of all, they need to keep developing on Wave, but keep quiet about it, and come out in a year or 2 time when the world is more likely to listen, it runs better, and browsers can handle it. Wave is a fantastic conversation tool. It is not a document editor, it is not a code editor, but it works great for collaborative conversations. The whole way it is structured is great for discussions. I had quite a few waves with people that were discussion projects, or working on something that we had to get done, that were not actually the code or document that we were doing, but were a seperate discussion within it.

That leads me on to my next point. Google Docs and Etherpad. Google Docs is great nowadays. It used to suck, but now it is fantastic for editing and collaborating on documents. I use it for most of my document editing (I generally don’t use OpenOffice anymore, as this fullfills all my needs). However…it lacks 2 things:

1. A plain text editor. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this, but I would love an option in Google Docs to have plain text. Currently it has to be a “Document” or a “Spreadsheet” or something like that. Theres no option just to bung text into it. Why? Well, I think this is where Etherpad can be integrated into it. Google bought etherpad, and we have to wonder why. I’m hoping they will put the technology into a plain text editor into google Docs. This would make Google Docs the hub for my online life. Collaboration on documents AND code. Fantastic. Hey, they could even put syntax hilighting into it. Google, you need to do this. I WANT this so badly.

2. The chat. Yes, ok, the chat exists, but I’ll be honest – it is rubbish. For one, it dissapears when you close the document, and open it back up. What is with that? I can’t see comments in the chat that people leave when I’m offline??? Thats just weird. Second of all, I think this is a perfect place to integrate Wave. Create a wave, and allow that to be the chat at the side of Google Doc editing. Then you could have a great chat at the side of it, and even see it outside Google Docs, and possibly even embed it onto a website, as you can do with any Wave.

Frankly, if Google do these 2 things, Google Docs would be full of awesome, and Wave would have a great purpose so therefore noone could ever say that Wave had no purpose, and shouldn’t be worked on. It is perfect for this, and would only help Wave in adoption with people. Just sayin…

Ok, so before anyone says anything, I know, only 1 of these products actually still exists as a product. The other 2 are opensource code that you can run on your own server, which don't get me wrong is great, but they aren't getting development at all now. However, there are things I think Google should be doing with all these things that they aren't, which I have said for a while would be great. First of all, they need to keep developing on Wave, but keep quiet about it, and come out in a year or 2 time when the world is more likely to listen, it runs better, and browsers can handle it. Wave is a fantastic conversation tool. It is not a document editor, it is not a code editor, but it works great for collaborative conversations. The whole way it is structured is great for discussions. I had quite a few waves with people that were discussion projects, or working on something that we had to get done, that were not actually the code or document that we were doing, but were a seperate discussion within it. That leads me on to my next point. Google Docs and Etherpad. Google Docs is great nowadays. It used to suck, but now it is fantastic for editing and collaborating on documents. I use it for most of my document editing (I generally don't use OpenOffice anymore, as this fullfills all my needs). However...it lacks 2 things: 1. A plain text editor. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, but I would love an option in Google Docs to have plain text. Currently it has to be a "Document" or a "Spreadsheet" or something like that. Theres no option just to bung text into it. Why? Well, I think this is where Etherpad can be integrated into it. Google bought etherpad, and we have to wonder why. I'm hoping they will put the technology into a plain text editor into google Docs. This would make Google Docs the hub for my online life. Collaboration on documents AND code. Fantastic. Hey, they could even put syntax hilighting into it. Google, you need to do this. I WANT this so badly. 2. The chat. Yes, ok, the chat exists, but I'll be honest - it is rubbish. For one, it dissapears when you close the document, and open it back up. What is with that? I can't see comments in the chat that people leave when I'm offline??? Thats just weird. Second of all, I think this is a perfect place to integrate Wave. Create a wave, and allow that to be the chat at the side of Google Doc editing. Then you could have a great chat at the side of it, and even see it outside Google Docs, and possibly even embed it onto a website, as you can do with any Wave. Frankly, if Google do these 2 things, Google Docs would be full of awesome, and Wave would have a great purpose so therefore noone could ever say that Wave had no purpose, and shouldn't be worked on. It is perfect for this, and would only help Wave in adoption with people. Just sayin...

Fig1

Now, granted that title doesn’t sound like high praise, but trust me it is. I just thought that the title “Springpad: At least as good as evernote now, but probably much better infact” was a bit too long…

Some of you may have heard of Springpad. And most of you will have heard of Evernote. I used evernote for a long time, even resorting to paying to get a premium account that I thought it was that good. It was really handy, I would take a note, it would be available on everything that I have (computers and phone) and I could just write stuff, have images, voice recordings etc… However, it annoyed me. It wasn’t great, and I am always on the look out for better products.

Along came a website telling me about Springpad. This sounded great, so I thought I would give it a try. It was alright, but not quite as nice as Evernote. It was a little bit raw, and a bit fragmented, and the Android app was not as good as the Evernote Android app.

However, this week we got the update to the new Springpad. It fixes almost everything that I missed from evernote. The 1 thing it lacks that Evernote has is images and voice record. (Actually, come to think about it, I think voice record is in the android app, but I don’t have my phone to check just now).

One thing that is fantastic about Springpad is the fact that it has different note types. It has the generic “note”, it has “task” it has “event”, “alarm”, “shopping list” and loads of others such as films and products and stuff. This is great because we can use it for shopping lists, obviously, and for christmas lists with the products, things to watch, things to do, and just generic notes.

This is Springpad’s huge advantage over Evernote, and something that is fantastic about it.

Fig2

In the upgrade to the service, it looks so much different, got a great UI overhaul got rid of the fragmentation of your data, and make it so much easier to organise and create data within it. As you can see on the image at the top, you have links to all of your “notebooks” (a replacement for the lists and apps, which was the fragmentation I was talking about), and links at the side to your settings etc. You also have an icon for all your stuff, and your friend’s stuff. This is a great layout, makes it look so much better than

before, and gets rid of a lot of the rubbish that was down the side of the old version of Springpad.

Then you have the notebook view (show in fig2). It allows viewing options of everything, specific tags, specific types, flagged items and the “board” which is a visual representation of whatever you want in that notebook. I don’t think I’ll use the board much, because that’s not how I work, but it looks like it’d be great to if you did like that sort of thing.

I really like the fact you can change how you view the notes in your notebook, and the search at the top, along with the new bulk editing feature (was really helpful when I wanted to add a tag to everything, or quite a lot of notes, in a notebook). These are both features I’ve looked at for quite a while.

It also just generally looks much better than what it did previously.

Now onto what I would like to change

• Allow us to hide the home sidebar, or put more useful stuff in there.

I’ll be honest…that sidebar on the homescreen looks useless…it has my name and avatar (frankly I know them already) and 3 small links to stuff that we would need. Either allow us to hide it, or have some more useful stuff in there, like the search box in my next suggestion.

• Search box on home screen

I would love a searchbox on the home screen, which would pop up a notebook-style window that shows us all of our notes that have that have that search term in it. If I randomly want to search for something quickly, I don’t want to have to open up a notebook to search, I would like that to happen really quickly if I need it to. This would work really well in the sidebar and stop that looking really useless

• Adding thumbnail manually

Small one here, but important to me. Most of my notes are just plain “notes” and so don’t show a thumbnail on the homescreen, can I please add them manually

• Fix formatting in notebook view

When in the detail view of notes, it doesn’t show carriage returns, it just shows them all as 1 big line…really annoying. Also, when in the thumbnail view, can we see a thumbnail of the note, because again most of my notes are plain text, and it looks pretty rubbish in that view.

• Hide “All stuff” and “Friends stuff”

Another wee small one…I don’t very often go into either of these, and I would like the ability to hide them. Possibly a checkbox in the sidebar (see 1st moan).

• Hide icons in notebook sidebar

Yet again another small one. I think those icons in the sidebar of notebook view take up so much space on my netbook (not so much a problem on my desktop, but I still don’t like them being there sometimes, I love my space), so just allow us to get rid of them when we want to. Possibly a per-notebook option?

• Notebooks inside notebooks

This is huge, but is something that could add to your list of big advantages over Evernote. If we can have notebooks within notebooks, that would be amazing. So, if I added a note to “cs203″ it would be added to “uni” but not “cs209″. I’m not sure how this would look on the homescreen, but I think this would be handy, because some of my notebooks overlap, but its annoying to add it to more than 1 notebook. Also allow me to hide notebooks on the homescreen, so it isn’t too cluttered.

• Sharing options

This is the other big one, but probably the most important one for me. I use note-taking sites for sharing things with uni collegues, and other things. However, currently they can only comment on them and look at them. I would like them to be able to edit them as well. I have to use Google Docs to edit things collaborativley, but would rather keep stuff related to my notes within my notes application. This is pretty big undertaking, but something that many people have asked for and would really love.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Springpad, and I have switched over fulltime to it from Evernote. I haven’t tried the updated Android app (as I don’t have my phone just now), but I have heard that it is so much better than what it was. These are just my little gripes, that would make it an even better service, and would totally leapfrog evernote in so many ways.

I would recommend Springpad to anyone, and I hope you join me in giving it a go.

[caption id="attachment_810" align="alignright" width="358" caption="Fig1"][/caption] Now, granted that title doesn't sound like high praise, but trust me it is. I just thought that the title "Springpad: At least as good as evernote now, but probably much better infact" was a bit too long... Some of you may have heard of Springpad. And most of you will have heard of Evernote. I used evernote for a long time, even resorting to paying to get a premium account that I thought it was that good. It was really handy, I would take a note, it would be available on everything that I have (computers and phone) and I could just write stuff, have images, voice recordings etc... However, it annoyed me. It wasn't great, and I am always on the look out for better products. Along came a website telling me about Springpad. This sounded great, so I thought I would give it a try. It was alright, but not quite as nice as Evernote. It was a little bit raw, and a bit fragmented, and the Android app was not as good as the Evernote Android app. However, this week we got the update to the new Springpad. It fixes almost everything that I missed from evernote. The 1 thing it lacks that Evernote has is images and voice record. (Actually, come to think about it, I think voice record is in the android app, but I don't have my phone to check just now). One thing that is fantastic about Springpad is the fact that it has different note types. It has the generic "note", it has "task" it has "event", "alarm", "shopping list" and loads of others such as films and products and stuff. This is great because we can use it for shopping lists, obviously, and for christmas lists with the products, things to watch, things to do, and just generic notes. This is Springpad's huge advantage over Evernote, and something that is fantastic about it. [caption id="attachment_811" align="alignleft" width="373" caption="Fig2"][/caption] In the upgrade to the service, it looks so much different, got a great UI overhaul got rid of the fragmentation of your data, and make it so much easier to organise and create data within it. As you can see on the image at the top, you have links to all of your "notebooks" (a replacement for the lists and apps, which was the fragmentation I was talking about), and links at the side to your settings etc. You also have an icon for all your stuff, and your friend's stuff. This is a great layout, makes it look so much better than before, and gets rid of a lot of the rubbish that was down the side of the old version of Springpad. Then you have the notebook view (show in fig2). It allows viewing options of everything, specific tags, specific types, flagged items and the "board" which is a visual representation of whatever you want in that notebook. I don't think I'll use the board much, because that's not how I work, but it looks like it'd be great to if you did like that sort of thing. I really like the fact you can change how you view the notes in your notebook, and the search at the top, along with the new bulk editing feature (was really helpful when I wanted to add a tag to everything, or quite a lot of notes, in a notebook). These are both features I've looked at for quite a while. It also just generally looks much better than what it did previously. Now onto what I would like to change Allow us to hide the home sidebar, or put more useful stuff in there. I'll be honest...that sidebar on the homescreen looks useless...it has my name and avatar (frankly I know them already) and 3 small links to stuff that we would need. Either allow us to hide it, or have some more useful stuff in there, like the search box in my next suggestion. Search box on home screen I would love a searchbox on the home screen, which would pop up a notebook-style window that shows us all of our notes that have that have that search term in it. If I randomly want to search for something quickly, I don't want to have to open up a notebook to search, I would like that to happen really quickly if I need it to. This would work really well in the sidebar and stop that looking really useless Adding thumbnail manually Small one here, but important to me. Most of my notes are just plain "notes" and so don't show a thumbnail on the homescreen, can I please add them manually :-) Fix formatting in notebook view When in the detail view of notes, it doesn't show carriage returns, it just shows them all as 1 big line...really annoying. Also, when in the thumbnail view, can we see a thumbnail of the note, because again most of my notes are plain text, and it looks pretty rubbish in that view. Hide "All stuff" and "Friends stuff" Another wee small one...I don't very often go into either of these, and I would like the ability to hide them. Possibly a checkbox in the sidebar (see 1st moan). Hide icons in notebook sidebar Yet again another small one. I think those icons in the sidebar of notebook view take up so much space on my netbook (not so much a problem on my desktop, but I still don't like them being there sometimes, I love my space), so just allow us to get rid of them when we want to. Possibly a per-notebook option? Notebooks inside notebooks This is huge, but is something that could add to your list of big advantages over Evernote. If we can have notebooks within notebooks, that would be amazing. So, if I added a note to "cs203" it would be added to "uni" but not "cs209". I'm not sure how this would look on the homescreen, but I think this would be handy, because some of my notebooks overlap, but its annoying to add it to more than 1 notebook. Also allow me to hide notebooks on the homescreen, so it isn't too cluttered. Sharing options This is the other big one, but probably the most important one for me. I use note-taking sites for sharing things with uni collegues, and other things. However, currently they can only comment on them and look at them. I would like them to be able to edit them as well. I have to use Google Docs to edit things collaborativley, but would rather keep stuff related to my notes within my notes application. This is pretty big undertaking, but something that many people have asked for and would really love. Don't get me wrong, I love Springpad, and I have switched over fulltime to it from Evernote. I haven't tried the updated Android app (as I don't have my phone just now), but I have heard that it is so much better than what it was. These are just my little gripes, that would make it an even better service, and would totally leapfrog evernote in so many ways. I would recommend Springpad to anyone, and I hope you join me in giving it a go.

Or “Why backdoors are bad things.”

Heard of the US government saying they want backdoors into web applications? All in the name of terrorism…sorry, in the name of fighting terrorism. It is so they can get access to data that they “need” to stop people blowing other people up. Ok…sure. Lets have a think of a few points about this:

• People who look for backdoors

Lets think about this, people are always looking for backdoors in web apps. And they are always there, because no code is perfect. It is quite hard however when noone knows about it. And when it is found, it can be fixed and will not happen again. So, although they will happen, they can be fixed, if a backdoor is in it for the US, do you think Google (for example) will close that backdoor to then open another one? No, they won’t.

• Documentation

If the government want these backdoors, they will want written documentation about how to access information through these doors. Now, we all know that the government are rubbish at keeping information secret (for one thing). They lose information on laptops, cds, usb sticks, the internet all the time. I don’t want information about how to access my private data being lost on a train. Not a good idea.

Also, what about Freedom of Information? If the government has inforamation, and someone asks for that information, they have to release it. (And then, of course, they will put it on wikileaks). I’m not sure if that is true in America, but certanarily if America has the info, Britain will get it as well. They are “allies” afterall, aren’t they? So, let us get the information freed!!! Let the whole world know how to get into my email…

• Terrorists aren’t that stupid…

If terrorists are stupid enough to communicate over big web apps, there is no way they will manage to bomb anyone anyway. They are normally cleverer than that. They don’t email each other, or put up a shared evernote note on when their attacks are going to happen. No. They will create encrypted sites that only they have access to, which is not a big web app, is homegrown, and won’t have any backdoors into it. And how are they going to get into that then?

Essentially, like every other policy that governments say, this  has not been thought through, and is just going to cause more and more security flaws in web apps that normal people use, and our data is going to get stolen. It WILL NOT stop terrorists from doing what they are doing.

Or "Why backdoors are bad things." Heard of the US government saying they want backdoors into web applications? All in the name of terrorism...sorry, in the name of fighting terrorism. It is so they can get access to data that they "need" to stop people blowing other people up. Ok...sure. Lets have a think of a few points about this: People who look for backdoors Lets think about this, people are always looking for backdoors in web apps. And they are always there, because no code is perfect. It is quite hard however when noone knows about it. And when it is found, it can be fixed and will not happen again. So, although they will happen, they can be fixed, if a backdoor is in it for the US, do you think Google (for example) will close that backdoor to then open another one? No, they won't. Documentation If the government want these backdoors, they will want written documentation about how to access information through these doors. Now, we all know that the government are rubbish at keeping information secret (for one thing). They lose information on laptops, cds, usb sticks, the internet all the time. I don't want information about how to access my private data being lost on a train. Not a good idea. Also, what about Freedom of Information? If the government has inforamation, and someone asks for that information, they have to release it. (And then, of course, they will put it on wikileaks). I'm not sure if that is true in America, but certanarily if America has the info, Britain will get it as well. They are "allies" afterall, aren't they? So, let us get the information freed!!! Let the whole world know how to get into my email... Terrorists aren't that stupid... If terrorists are stupid enough to communicate over big web apps, there is no way they will manage to bomb anyone anyway. They are normally cleverer than that. They don't email each other, or put up a shared evernote note on when their attacks are going to happen. No. They will create encrypted sites that only they have access to, which is not a big web app, is homegrown, and won't have any backdoors into it. And how are they going to get into that then? Essentially, like every other policy that governments say, this  has not been thought through, and is just going to cause more and more security flaws in web apps that normal people use, and our data is going to get stolen. It WILL NOT stop terrorists from doing what they are doing.

I’ve recently started playing with greasemonkey scripts. Greasemonkey is a browser extension that allows you to input javascript code into a webpage locally. This basically means you can change a website to how you would like it to do (well, as much as you can do with javascript).

So, I decided that I would do some page editing. I first of all turned my sights onto Google Reader. What a load of rubbish buttons and links that I never use. Why is that there? Thats what I was thinking. So, I wrote a greasemonkey script to get rid of all the rubbish that I don’t use. It may work for you as well, or it may not. Feel free to take the code and change it to how it would work for you. You can find the script here. And you can find the rest of my scripts here.

I am going to focus on another of my scripts in another blog post, but it isn’t quite up to scratch yet. You can have a look if you want.

I would recommend you to try out greasemonkey. It is great and stops you moaning about those little things in websites. Because, lets be honest, not every website is perfect for you. And how many times have you gone “I wish that wasn’t there” or “I would love this to be over here”. I would recommend using this introduction to greasemonkey from o’reilly. It really helped me in getting started with it.

Go script!!!

I've recently started playing with greasemonkey scripts. Greasemonkey is a browser extension that allows you to input javascript code into a webpage locally. This basically means you can change a website to how you would like it to do (well, as much as you can do with javascript). So, I decided that I would do some page editing. I first of all turned my sights onto Google Reader. What a load of rubbish buttons and links that I never use. Why is that there? Thats what I was thinking. So, I wrote a greasemonkey script to get rid of all the rubbish that I don't use. It may work for you as well, or it may not. Feel free to take the code and change it to how it would work for you. You can find the script here. And you can find the rest of my scripts here. I am going to focus on another of my scripts in another blog post, but it isn't quite up to scratch yet. You can have a look if you want. I would recommend you to try out greasemonkey. It is great and stops you moaning about those little things in websites. Because, lets be honest, not every website is perfect for you. And how many times have you gone "I wish that wasn't there" or "I would love this to be over here". I would recommend using this introduction to greasemonkey from o'reilly. It really helped me in getting started with it. Go script!!!

These words may seem like big words to some people. Hey, to me they are even large ones. So, I’ll very quickly explain both of them.

• Federation

There are many definitions of this. The best one, IMHO, comes from dictionary.com – “a federated body formed by a number of nations, states, societies, unions, etc., each retaining control of its own internal affairs.” So, in terms of software (which is what i’m going to talk about today) means a bunch of programs (desktop or web etc) that all work together but can still be different internally.

• Segregation

This one is more obvious. “The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities, especially as a form of discrimination”. So, again in terms of software, this is when different programs that are similar are split up and don’t work together, and sometimes don’t even know that the others exist.

Well, why am I talking about these? Well, I’m thinking about things in terms of social networking services just now. Facebook is huge. Noone knows exactly, but its probably between 350 and 500 million people. Lets be honest, the biggest social network in the history of the internet. However, they are having a huge backlash just now on their privacy settings, and a number of people are leaving it. Now, obviously a few people leaving it won’t change it much, but what happens when those people leave facebook? What do they do? Where do they go?

This is the horrible situation we have just now. Web apps are mostly segregated. They don’t work together, infact sometimes they work AGAINST each other, actively seperating themselves. Facebook is facebook, twitter is twitter, etc etc.

Well, this is where federation comes in. Let us take status.net into consideration. You can have any status.net instance (identica, or your own instance) and follow anyone on any other Ostatus federated web service. So, say twitter because Ostatus federated. this would mean that I could have 1 identi.ca account and follow anyone on identi.ca, twitter, twitarmy or any other status.net instance. And then, say facebook used Ostatus on their news feed? That would mean that I could have an identi.ca account (or twitter, facebook, or status.net account) and follow anyone on identica, twitter, facebook, or any other status.net instance. That is practically everyone on the internet, isn’t it.

So, the point of what I’m saying is that you could federate any part of a social network. This would mean that a new service (like diaspre) or an old service (like facebook or twitter) could implement these features as well, and then anyone could have 1 account on any of these services, and follow/be friends with anyone on any of these services. No more having 3/4 accounts on different services. Makes everything so much simpler and more open, and stops 1 service having a huge monopoly like facebook does just now.

So, yeah, federation, not segregation…

These words may seem like big words to some people. Hey, to me they are even large ones. So, I'll very quickly explain both of them. Federation There are many definitions of this. The best one, IMHO, comes from dictionary.com - "a federated body formed by a number of nations, states, societies, unions, etc., each retaining control of its own internal affairs." So, in terms of software (which is what i'm going to talk about today) means a bunch of programs (desktop or web etc) that all work together but can still be different internally. Segregation This one is more obvious. "The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities, especially as a form of discrimination". So, again in terms of software, this is when different programs that are similar are split up and don't work together, and sometimes don't even know that the others exist. Well, why am I talking about these? Well, I'm thinking about things in terms of social networking services just now. Facebook is huge. Noone knows exactly, but its probably between 350 and 500 million people. Lets be honest, the biggest social network in the history of the internet. However, they are having a huge backlash just now on their privacy settings, and a number of people are leaving it. Now, obviously a few people leaving it won't change it much, but what happens when those people leave facebook? What do they do? Where do they go? This is the horrible situation we have just now. Web apps are mostly segregated. They don't work together, infact sometimes they work AGAINST each other, actively seperating themselves. Facebook is facebook, twitter is twitter, etc etc. Well, this is where federation comes in. Let us take status.net into consideration. You can have any status.net instance (identica, or your own instance) and follow anyone on any other Ostatus federated web service. So, say twitter because Ostatus federated. this would mean that I could have 1 identi.ca account and follow anyone on identi.ca, twitter, twitarmy or any other status.net instance. And then, say facebook used Ostatus on their news feed? That would mean that I could have an identi.ca account (or twitter, facebook, or status.net account) and follow anyone on identica, twitter, facebook, or any other status.net instance. That is practically everyone on the internet, isn't it. So, the point of what I'm saying is that you could federate any part of a social network. This would mean that a new service (like diaspre) or an old service (like facebook or twitter) could implement these features as well, and then anyone could have 1 account on any of these services, and follow/be friends with anyone on any of these services. No more having 3/4 accounts on different services. Makes everything so much simpler and more open, and stops 1 service having a huge monopoly like facebook does just now. So, yeah, federation, not segregation...

Ok, so, after just 2 hours of playing around with my server, I upgraded it from Ubuntu 8.04 to 10.04 (w00t for LTS) and migrated it away from apache to lighttpd. “Whats wrong with Apache?” I hear you ask. Well, my VPS is running on 512MB of ram, and with apache running, it was literally using over 256Mb of ram, and that caused the server to crash 3 times in the last 2 weeks. This, obviously, isn’t a good thing, so I decided to try lighttpd and it turns out that my server now has almost 240Mb of ram free. So, that is a saving of over 200Mb of ram. Fantastic.

“How can I move over to lighttpd?” I now hear you cry. Well, it was actually quite simple, and I plan to show you how I moved my WordPress install over to it.

**NOTE** This  was written for Ubuntu 10.04, but should work in any other version of ubuntu, and should work for most other distros if you just use your respective package manager, and different places where the files are saved possibly

• Well, lets go, first of all, make sure you are totally up to date with all your packages (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade).

• Install lighttpd

In Ubuntu this would be “sudo apt-get install lighttpd” – this will install lighttpd, created a default conf file and start lighttpd (however, if you currently have apache running, it will fail to start because apache is already binded to port 80).

• Edit lighttpd.conf

In ubuntu, you can find this at “/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf”. If you have apache running on port 80 just now then find the line “server.port = 80″ and change it to something else (such as 81). You can keep it like this until you have all your configuration working, and access it at http://www.domain.com:81 to see if it works.

You can edit the root for your website on the line ‘server.document-root        = “/var/www”‘ – just change this to wherever your website is saved.

• Edit wordpress settings for permalinks

Lighttpd doesn’t work very well with wordpress’ permalinks because it goes for a 404 error. For this, you will have to do 2 things.

First, edit your 404.php file in your wordpress theme and add this to the top “< ?php header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found"); ?>“. This will make sure that proper 404 errors will still show up in search engines (which is kinda important).

Second, edit this line in your lighttpd.conf ‘#server.error-handler-404  = “/error-handler.php”‘ and turn that into ‘server.error-handler-404  = “/index.php”‘. If you have virtual hosts set up (and I’ll show you how to do that very soon) make sure you do that in the virtual host rather than the default one.

• And that is it…

You now have a working wordpress install on lighttpd. If it all seems to work, change the port back to 80, stop apache, and restart lighttpd (sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart). There are obviously many more things you can get to do, such as virtual hosts (which I’m literally just about to tell you about), but you still can have a working install, so enjoy.

• Virtual hosts

This is one bit of lighttpd that I really love, it is so much easier than apache. Ok, so get to a nice empty bit of you lighttpd file, (make sure it is before the bit at the end of the file that says it must be at the end of the file. Things will break…) and copy this into it:

$HTTP["host"] =~ “(^|\.)domain\.co.uk” {
server.document-root = “/path/to/”
server.errorlog = “/var/log/lighttpd/domain/error.log”
accesslog.filename = “/var/log/lighttpd/domain/access.log”
server.error-handler-404 = “/index.php”
}

Make sure you replace “domain\.co.uk” with your domain (make sure you leave the slash there though) and replace “/path/to/” to wherever your files are. Then restart lighttpd, and you are all sorted. Nice and easy. If you are using an ip address, or a subdomain instead, you don’t need the whole bit before the domain, and you can just have “sub.domain.com” or “192.168.2.1″.

I hope this tutorial has helped anyone free up some RAM on their webserver. If you have any suggestions for this tutorial, or any questions about something that has gone wrong, then please leave a comment I’ll include any corrections to my work (and credit you). Have fun with your lighttpd.

Ok, so, after just 2 hours of playing around with my server, I upgraded it from Ubuntu 8.04 to 10.04 (w00t for LTS) and migrated it away from apache to lighttpd. "Whats wrong with Apache?" I hear you ask. Well, my VPS is running on 512MB of ram, and with apache running, it was literally using over 256Mb of ram, and that caused the server to crash 3 times in the last 2 weeks. This, obviously, isn't a good thing, so I decided to try lighttpd and it turns out that my server now has almost 240Mb of ram free. So, that is a saving of over 200Mb of ram. Fantastic. "How can I move over to lighttpd?" I now hear you cry. Well, it was actually quite simple, and I plan to show you how I moved my Wordpress install over to it. **NOTE** This  was written for Ubuntu 10.04, but should work in any other version of ubuntu, and should work for most other distros if you just use your respective package manager, and different places where the files are saved possibly Well, lets go, first of all, make sure you are totally up to date with all your packages (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade). Install lighttpd In Ubuntu this would be "sudo apt-get install lighttpd" - this will install lighttpd, created a default conf file and start lighttpd (however, if you currently have apache running, it will fail to start because apache is already binded to port 80). Edit lighttpd.conf In ubuntu, you can find this at "/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf". If you have apache running on port 80 just now then find the line "server.port = 80" and change it to something else (such as 81). You can keep it like this until you have all your configuration working, and access it at http://www.domain.com:81 to see if it works. You can edit the root for your website on the line 'server.document-root        = "/var/www"' - just change this to wherever your website is saved. Edit wordpress settings for permalinks Lighttpd doesn't work very well with wordpress' permalinks because it goes for a 404 error. For this, you will have to do 2 things. First, edit your 404.php file in your wordpress theme and add this to the top "< ?php header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found"); ?>". This will make sure that proper 404 errors will still show up in search engines (which is kinda important). Second, edit this line in your lighttpd.conf '#server.error-handler-404  = "/error-handler.php"' and turn that into 'server.error-handler-404  = "/index.php"'. If you have virtual hosts set up (and I'll show you how to do that very soon) make sure you do that in the virtual host rather than the default one. And that is it... You now have a working wordpress install on lighttpd. If it all seems to work, change the port back to 80, stop apache, and restart lighttpd (sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart). There are obviously many more things you can get to do, such as virtual hosts (which I'm literally just about to tell you about), but you still can have a working install, so enjoy. Virtual hosts This is one bit of lighttpd that I really love, it is so much easier than apache. Ok, so get to a nice empty bit of you lighttpd file, (make sure it is before the bit at the end of the file that says it must be at the end of the file. Things will break...) and copy this into it: $HTTP["host"] =~ "(^|\.)domain\.co.uk" { server.document-root = "/path/to/" server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/domain/error.log" accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/domain/access.log" server.error-handler-404 = "/index.php" } Make sure you replace "domain\.co.uk" with your domain (make sure you leave the slash there though) and replace "/path/to/" to wherever your files are. Then restart lighttpd, and you are all sorted. Nice and easy. If you are using an ip address, or a subdomain instead, you don't need the whole bit before the domain, and you can just have "sub.domain.com" or "192.168.2.1". I hope this tutorial has helped anyone free up some RAM on their webserver. If you have any suggestions for this tutorial, or any questions about something that has gone wrong, then please leave a comment :-) I'll include any corrections to my work (and credit you). Have fun with your lighttpd.

So, I sent an email to Jim Murphy, my MP (although technically he isn’t my MP just now as parliament has been dissolved, and that must take a lot of hot water…) about the Digital Economies Bill (now the Digital Economies Act). Yesterday, I got a reply from him by letter (yes…letter), nearly 3 weeks after I sent him the original email. There is obviously no point in writing to him again until after the election (and if he actually gets back in the seat, which I hope he doesn’t), so I thought I would post about it here. I scanned it in, and if you click on the small copy of the image, you will be able to see it in all of its large, scanned glory.

Take the jump to see extracts of it, and my opinions on what he wrote to me.

**UPDATE** Image changed due to information that needed to be blurred out #fail **UPDATE**

(more…)

So, I sent an email to Jim Murphy, my MP (although technically he isn't my MP just now as parliament has been dissolved, and that must take a lot of hot water...) about the Digital Economies Bill (now the Digital Economies Act). Yesterday, I got a reply from him by letter (yes...letter), nearly 3 weeks after I sent him the original email. There is obviously no point in writing to him again until after the election (and if he actually gets back in the seat, which I hope he doesn't), so I thought I would post about it here. I scanned it in, and if you click on the small copy of the image, you will be able to see it in all of its large, scanned glory. Take the jump to see extracts of it, and my opinions on what he wrote to me. **UPDATE** Image changed due to information that needed to be blurred out #fail **UPDATE** Thank you for contacting me recently about the Digital Economies Bill. I understand your concerns regarding this Bill however I do not agree that this important piece of legislation has been rushed through Parliament as all stages of the legislative process have been adhered to. Ok, so he is saying this wasn't rushed? A Bill that was pushed through by unelected members of parliament, that had a 3 hour debate in which loads of members stood up and spoke against it, and actively said that the Bill was being rushed through parliament, had just over 200 people voting on it (and many more less actually attending the debate), which Jim Murphy himself didn't even turn up or vote on it, over 20000 people who wrote to their MPs were effectively ignored and people asking important things in the debate were told not to ask them by the Speaker. Ok, yeah, you are right, Jim, this wasn't rushed through. Or not. As you may know before this Bill was passed the UK copyright framework was 300 years old therefore we needed to introduce measures to bring this up to date. And here we have the only sensible thing he has said. We do need to reform copyright, but this is not the way it should be done. I understand that you are concerned in particular about the measures intended to tackle online infringements of copyright. Actually, no. I made at least 3 points in my original letter to him and only 1 of them was about the 3 strikes law. Yes, that point was larger than the other 2, but that wasn't because I was worried about it more, it was because there were more things that I could say about it. The UK Government believes that Internet Service Providers should play a role in helping to make online infringment a less attractive option. Well, first of all, maybe you should do something that UK ISPs are actually happy with. Second of all, maybe you should realise that the 3 strikes law, which was actually put down in several countries, increased piracy in France. A law should be there to stop people doing something, and if it isn't doing that, there is no point in it. It won't stop piracy. Rights holders would have to apply for a court order to get access to the name and address of serious repeat infringers in order to prioritise legal action against them. Ok, well, this is new. Last time I looked it didn't have this. It is a little bit of an improvement, but not enough to make it a good idea. They also don't realise that it isn't that easy for ISPs to do this. There are so many technical loopholes. There are a few problems with this letter, and the bill in general: He doesn't mention anything about the issues with free wifi. He doesn't mention anything about the issues with blocking websites. Reading through this summary of the debill, almost everything is basically copied from this and thrown into a letter together. No matter what he says, this was totally rushed through parliament This shows a complete lack of understanding of the technical implications. I don't have to highlight anymore of the issues with the Digital Economies Bill because you can read them in my letter, and in countless things written by other people and magazines. (Note the guardian, new scientist and talk talk articles)