Tag Archive for 'musings'

Another reason I still like newspapers

Published on March 2, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

gmposter

It’s hard to include a free poster on a web site following a major event, like one heck of a gold medal hockey game.

Though, this is just the latest news event that provided a piece of art demonstrating the value of a physical product over collections of ones and zeros.

Barack Obama’s historic election victory in November 2008 saw collectors hitting eBay and paying more than $100 for a copy of The New York Times.

I was working part-time evenings in a call centre at the time and had a co-worker who was a big Obama supporter ask if she could have my copy of the local paper to hang on her wall. I obliged.

Right-clicking on a web site image and hitting “Save As” just isn’t the same as holding something in your hands, it would seem.

I suppose forward-thinking news organizations could consider adding a direct link to The Rasterbator for images that go with big news events but printing at home can still be pricier than the dollar picking up the newspaper costs – as well the extra work that goes along with putting the “Rasterbated” poster together.

E-books, DRM and irony

Published on July 17, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’ve never been a fan of Digital Rights Management. In general, the anti-piracy measure frustrates legitimate consumers (such as finding out music you PAID to download won’t play on the MP3 player of your choice) while pirates always find a way around it.

Today, all this took a deliciously ironic twist over Amazon’s Kindle E-book reader.

Many customers woke up this morning to find that Amazon had remotely deleted two books from their collection.

If this sounds Orwellian, well, wait for it. According to David Pogue’s blog at the New York Times, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm were the two books that had been deleted at the request of the rights holder.

Now, getting past the irony (delicious as it may be) this SNAFU really underscores the issue of being expected to pay for digital content.

A frequent argument used against pirating music off the Internet is “You wouldn’t walk into a music store and stuff a bunch of CDs in your pocket.”

Well, it goes both ways. If Chapters employees broke into my apartment and swiped a few books I paid for, we’d have a pretty big problem (and some injured Chapters employees.)

Worse is that I’m fairly sure if one were to find a place to download said books illegally, they wouldn’t be getting deleted.

That said, the idea of an e-book reader has intrigued me for a while though I don’t have one since the price is still pretty high for this poor freelance writer. However, were I able to afford one, it definitely wouldn’t be the Kindle and just because it isn’t even available in Canada. I mean, not to put the tinfoil hat on, but I really don’t want to carry something around that the manufacturer can access remotely any time. 

The economy is quickly moving to selling ones and zeroes rather than physical products and in many ways, that’s for the better. But really, this whole issue of ownership needs to be figured out before it takes off any further.

Windows 7 impressions

Published on January 27, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Ooooh, pretty. Look at how nice those fonts are…

win7

Okay, but seriously, I’m probably a little late on writing this up, but on the other hand, I’ve been living with the Windows 7 beta for longer than a week now.

First things first: This sucker flies. I haven’t sat down with a stopwatch while it was booting up, but it definitely seems pretty speedy in that respect. However, boot-up speed isn’t that big of a deal to me. What concerns me more is how long after the desktop is displayed do I have to sit around waiting for the hard drive to stop spinning before I can actually use my computer.

In fact, that factor is the reason why I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for the past six months – I can use it almost instantaneously after the desktop loads. Meanwhile, Windows XP’s desktop to usability time was being measured in minutes.

Well, even with a bunch of programs set to load at start-up, Windows 7 is usable about 10 seconds after logging in. I’m happy.

The task bar

The new task bar is what pretty much everyone whose written about Windows 7 has focused on and I can see why. It’s great.

Rather than having a bunch of bars at the bottom of the screen that say what program is minimized there, you just have icons (which can be “pinned” to the bar as launchers.)

If you hover over the icon for a running program, you see a little preview of the window pop-up. Now this was already in Vista, Linux does it as well (I don’t know about Macs since I haven’t used one since OS 9) but Windows 7 adds something special. You can interact with that little preview.

win7taskbar

For example, the other day I was moving a bunch of files from one drive to another. By hovering over the Explorer icon, I got previews showing me the different directories, along with a progress bar showing me how far along the copying was. I could click on the individual Explorer window I wanted to see up close or just go back to whatever else I was doing.

Being a beta, only Microsoft programs really take full advantage of the task bar, but hopefully by release time, other developers will have updated their apps.

Even in the current form though, it feels like a more intuitive way to navigate than hitting Alt-Tab and running through a dozen windows in some cases.

Libraries

This is a feature I both love and hate at the same time.

Rather than just having folders that contain files, like the now ingrained My Documents structure, Windows 7 uses Libraries, which is a way in indexing the contents of multiple folders but keeping it in one spot.

For example, I keep my music on a portable hard drive and was able to tell Windows to add it to the music library. So now as long as the portable drive is plugged in, Windows knows to check it for music.

The Libraries feature is great for that purpose, but there’s also a downside when using anything besides the built-in Explorer to find a file. I discovered this when I was trying to find an image file I had downloaded to the Pictures Library. I expected to find it in /My Documents/My Pictures but no, no such luck.

Instead it turned out to be somewhere like /Users/Public/Pictures – Huh?

Gripes

Now, this is a beta release so I suppose I should expect to see some issues. The fist one I noticed is that for some reason, OpenGL doesn’t work. That means no Quake for me unless I reboot into Linux to play it (something about rebooting from Windows into Linux to play a video game seems kinda ironic…)

My Blackberry doesn’t seem to like Windows 7, either. I was looking forward to being able to manage it properly again with RIM’s Desktop Manager, but no. When I plug in my 8700, the computer recognizes it for a few seconds and then pretends it’s not there. I can’t even charge it off my USB port (unless I reboot into Linux again…)

Also, this is a minor issue, but as much as I like the weather gadget on my desktop, I really wish there was a way to keep it pinned to the taskbar.

Conclusion

I like this and I’ve never been excited about a Windows OS in my life. That includes Windows 95 (I was one of those geeks who couldn’t believe they were killing DOS.)

For an early release, it’s pretty solid and I can only imagine it’ll get better before it’s released commercially.

Which brings me to my biggest issue with Windows in general and why I’m trying not to get too attached. As nice as this is, I feel a tad ill to realize that once the trial expires, it’ll probably run me around $300 per computer to keep running Windows 7.

Meanwhile Linux keeps getting better (though it still has it’s own list of flaws) and is completely free. I really wish Microsoft would listen up on their licensing policy. I don’t expect them to make a free operating system but I don’t think it would be unreasonable for a retail version of Windows to come with licenses for three computers to way Office Home and Student does.

That alone is enough to keep me using free open-source software.

Xobni – a day late, a buck short for me

Published on May 5, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Xobni, a product I’ve been interested in for some time has finally been released to the public.

It’s a Microsoft Outlook extension that claims to find the “hidden social network” in your e-mails. It’s functions do look really cool. For example, when you click the profile of someone you e-mail regularly, it’ll show things like phone numbers that person has e-mailed you, which sounds insanely useful.

One slight problem for me, though: I deleted Outlook from my life months ago. Being a broke freelancer who can’t afford an Exchange server, I keep all my e-mail synchronized through IMAP and Outlook’s support for IMAP is well, pathetic.

There’s still hope, though. Xobni recently walked away from a Microsoft acquisition which means they’ll be free to work on this extension for other e-mail systems so hopefully a Thunderbird (which has killer IMAP support) won’t be far behind.

I think the spammers have finally invaded Facebook

Published on April 17, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

fbspam

Facebook is looking a little more like MySpace to me this week. In the past few days, I’ve been fending off “friend” requests from women in the U.S. I’ve never heard of. They also seem far more attractive than any woman that would be likely to want to randomly talk to me. So, Internet logic dictates that they’re probably trying to sell me Viagra. Blah.

The New York Times missed the real digital sweatshops

Published on April 6, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , .

I’m rather disappointed in this piece on the dangers of blogging in the New York Times.

Not for the same reasons as the legions of bloggers who’ve already denounced it, though. The piece has a strong lead, referring to blogs as the “digital-era sweatshop.”

Seeing that line filled me with glee, I thought that finally, someone is going to say something about the exploitive pay rates that come from so-called “new media” enterprises. But no, the sweatshop comparison went away after the first paragraph. The rest of the article focused on how bloggers work insanely long hours often to the detriment of their health.

First off, I have no idea why the piece focused on blogs specifically. Being constantly “turned on” and seeking the story before anybody else applies equally to any form of media, including newspaper journalists. (I’ve written before that I don’t get the whole divide between newspaper reporters and bloggers who blog about the news…)

Heck, I’m equally guilty. While in college I literally spent 15 straight hours working on an article for a college-published magazine. The next day, I had massive stomach pains that I figured were probably from a stress-induced ulcer.

But that’s the nature of the business and it takes a certain kind of person to do it.

So, no, my issue with the piece was I wanted to see more on the digital sweatshops which is destroyed halfway through the story when reporter Matt Richtel writes that bloggers make between $30,000-$70,000 per year. A very generous estimation and why I was so annoyed with the story.

Sure, the major blogs pay that much but getting a job at one is about is likely as getting hired by the New York Times. In fact, it’s probably easier to get a freelance piece in the Times than on Gizmodo (does Gizmodo even accept freelance submissions?)

The fact is, most of the blogs that advertise opening offer a pittance: $5 per post or something insane like, $175 a month for 6 posts per week.

Or worse, they lure writers in on a “revenue share” plan, which sounds great…if the blog in question HAS any revenue.

Fresh out of j-school and desperate to find work since I’d spent all of my modest savings supporting myself through an unpaid internship, I applied for a web site looking for writers. I didn’t now much about online publishing at the time, but I figured a share of advertising revenue should be decent, since it seemed like a big site.

Well, I quickly learned that a 25 per cent share of zilch is still zilch.

That my friends, is a digital sweatshop and what I had hoped the article would be covering.

Adobe Photoshop Express: Booooooring

Published on March 27, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

Adobe_Photoshop_Express_-_Mozilla_Firefox-03.27.2008-01.17.03PM

I’ve been waiting some time for Adobe to finally release their web-based version of Photoshop. Well, Photoshop Express is finally here and wow, what a disappointment.

The interface looks nifty but…there’s not much you can do with it. The crop tool is awkward to use and every other feature is horribly crippled. Google’s free to download Picasa offers better photo editing than this.

While I obviously didn’t expect Adobe to throw all the features of Photoshop into a web app, I at least expected them to have something of an edge on similar products but nope…not even close.

Lament for a lost hour of sleep

Published on March 9, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

*ring* *ring* *ring*

Officer: Major Crimes Unit, how can I help you?

Me: If I told you about a murder that was going to happen at 2 a.m. would you be able to do something about it?

Officer: Of course we would!

Me: Good…because I know about one…

Officer: Who may I ask is going to be murdered?

Me: AN HOUR OF SLEEP!! They’re going to violently slaughter it, but we CAN do something about it! Refuse to set your clock forward! You won’t be an hour late, everyone else is going to be an hour early…together, we can stop this heinous crime from happening…hello? are you still there?

Green Party of Canada: You’ve spammed me for the last time

Published on February 23, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: .

In most areas, I have a tendency to support the underdogs.

Several years ago, that tendency led to me signing a petition to allow the Green Party of Canada to appear on the televised political debates.

I thought nothing of including my e-mail address on the petition but this turned out to be the big mistake.

It seems the party harvested this list for their newsletter, which they’ve been spamming me with since the last Federal election. I didn’t have a problem at first, but as time went on, their postings became more and more frequent…and annoying.

It’s gotten real bad lately, since for some reason they feel the need to e-mail me every few days to let me know that there’s a possible election coming (never mind the fact that none of the political commentators I read seem to think so) and ask for donations.

Enough is enough, I finally took the time to hit the unsubscribe button. Between press releases and other junk that ends up in my inbox, I don’t need digital panhandling as well.

So to the Green Party’s PR flaks: Please, do some research on social media marketing, sending out newsletters that weren’t requested to people who showed you a little bit a goodwill a few years ago just gets annoying.

I didn’t mind the monthly updates at first, I even read through them. But seriously, I don’t have time to go over these every few days especially since the e-mails rarely tell me anything new.

Eclipsed by the urban landscape

Published on February 21, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

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bigger3, originally uploaded by goldstardeputy.

Last night there was a beautiful lunar eclipse where the moon turned almost blood red.

Or so I heard.

My problem in getting to enjoy this phenomenon was two-fold. First off, being stuck at work.

Although there was a window visible from my tiny cubicle, all I could really see the glare from the unfiltered fluorescent lights.

The other obviously being the urban landscape itself: streetlights, the the lit-up signs from nearby stores and all that other junk.

Seems like a bit of a shame to have such killer ambiance killed off. That, and being stuck in a cubicle kind of prevented me from blaring Echo and the Bunnymen’s Under a Killing Moon.