Byte Into It 10 Oct 07

Microsoft aims patent guns at Red Hat - vnunet.com

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has warned users of Red Hat Linux that they will have to pay Microsoft for its intellectual property."People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us," Ballmer said last week at a company event in London discussing online services in the UK.

Wireless net bug bites Next G | Australian IT

TELSTRA wireless internet customers have run into problems with the Next G network as a result of a software snafu disabling or corrupting card modems used to connect to the web.Telstra confirmed the problem, caused by a firmware upgrade that affected some Option-manufactured wireless internet cards, but denied that large numbers of customers had been hit by the bug.

However, one BigPond wireless internet user whose card had been disabled by the firmware upgrade said Telstra technicians had suggested thousands of people had experienced problems with their wireless modems.

According to the customer, Telstra technicians said some of the cards could be fixed with a software patch while others required a replacement wireless modem.The customer said Telstra's response to the problem had been quick and
replacement cards were being issued to wireless broadband users whose
hardware had failed.

Amazon's MP3 store rips off your fair use rights - Boing Boing

Amazon's contract says you "may copy, store, transfer and burn the Digital Content" for personal use. But then it goes further and specifies restrictions, saying you "agree that you will not redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, broadcast, rent, share, lend, modify, adapt, edit, sub-license or otherwise transfer or use the Digital Content."

How to become a tagging master | Lifehacker Australia

43 Folders has written a guide devoted to the fine art of tagging. No matter what the data is that you're tagging - blog posts, photos on Flickr, or bookmarks at del.icio.us, a good tagging system will help you find what you seek with ease. This three point guide basically says consider what you're tagging and how you'll remember them (ie photos are often associated with the place they were taken, or the person they depict). It also points out you should consider what needs to be tagged - for example, OSX files already have the date created and modified attached to them, so tagging them with a date is redundant.FInally and most importantly, create a list of attributes from which you'll draw your tags.

A breath of (Adobe) AIR | Lifehacker Australia

APC magazine has a writeup of Adobe's cross-platform runtime, AIR, which looks at eBay's beta version of eBay Desktop based on Adobe AIR (its verdict: less annoying that eBay's website) and a number of other applications which have been written for AIR, including: * Arise - a news aggregator;
* Bee - a desktop blog editor which integrates with WordPress and Flickr;
* Fresh - an RSS feeder created using AJAX;
* MapCache - a map/direction system using Yahoo! Map Web Services;
* Podcast Player;
* RoadFinder which combines Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps.

Seagate combines flash memory, hard disk for notebook storage - Storage - www.itnews.com.au

Seagate Technology on Monday launched its first combination disk storage and flash memory hard drive, joining rival Samsung Electronics in offering hybrid drives that manufacturers say speed the boot-up time of PCs and significantly boost battery life.The Seagate Momentus 5400 PSD, which stands for "power savings drive," offers 160 Gbytes of traditional rotating disk storage and 256 Mbytes of flash memory. Sony is the first PC maker to offer the new product, making it available in its Vaio SZ650,

Digg - Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon free CD's: orders are taken NOW

The shipit service of Ubuntu is now taking orders for Gutsy shipments. Standard options: 1 or 2 x86 cd's or 1 x86_64 cd's

Vista Sp1: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) Looking Good So Far, Due in Q1 '08 - Gizmodo

The first service pack for Windows Vista is on its way, and PC Magazine has a preview of an early private beta version. The good news is that reviewer Neil Randall found the service pack to be faster overall than the shipping version of Windows Vista, and also noticed more drivers available and improved encryption. Randall also experienced applications within Adobe Creative Suite CS2 running faster, dialog boxes popping up more rapidly and other file copying speedups. This bodes well for the shipping version of SP1, which should be available along with Service Pack 3 of Windows XP (the last service pack for XP) in Q1 of 2008.

Yahoo Music to record execs: No more DRM, ever - Boing Boing

Yahoo! Music's Ian Rogers gave an inspirational talk to some music execs with two messages: one, I won't build DRM anymore for you, because Yahoo customers hate it; and two, let's focus on all the ways that free-as-in-speech music can kick enormous amounts of ass.

Free wireless networking HOWTO book - Boing Boing

The book covers planning a Wi-Fi network, setting it up, security considerations, and adding antennas or more base stations to increase coverage and range. (What's not included? Much about WPA security and anything about 802.11n.)

Slashdot | RIAA Conceals Overturned Case

"When a Judge agreed with the RIAA's claim that 'making available' was actionable under the Copyright Act, in Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA was quick to bring this 'authority' to the attention of the judges in Elektra v. Barker and Warner v. Cassin. Those judges were considering the same issue. When the that decision was overturned successfully, however, they were not so quick to inform those same judges of this new development. When the defendants' lawyers found out — a week after the RIAA's lawyers learned of it — they had to notify the judges themselves . At this moment we can only speculate as to what legal authorities they cited to the judge in Duluth, Minnesota, to get him to instruct the jurors that just 'making available' was good enough."

Mac Freeware: Save Up to $1,600 in Software! | MacApper

The following software is 100% free and tried and proven with excellent results. Besides, if it doesn’t work for you, it didn’t cost you anything to start with.

Mac Rumors: Trillian For Mac Coming

Though this first alpha build of the OS X version of Trillian is still very preliminary and minimal - the functionality pulled through is about the same as the Flash-based web version - the code for every single feature on the Windows version is there in the underlying mediums. As the UI is expanded, those features will become available. The OS X version will be playing catch-up to the Windows one for a while yet, however.

Microsoft challenged to either put up or shut up - The INQUIRER

OPEN SAUCE group Open Invention Network (OIN) has called Microsoft's bluff on its sabre-rattling claims that Linux infringes some of its patents, reports Australia's IT News.CEO of OIN Jerry Rosenthal believes that Microsoft's statements are empty threats. He says the Vole should either disclose exactly which patents its talking about or cut out slandering Linux and drop its claims.

"The FUD is clear. If you have a patent that you are proud of, then disclose it," Rosenthal said. "If your patent is a good patent then you are not worried about revealing it before going to court because you would be confident of success."

Digg - Leaked Antitrust Memo: Bill Gates et al are Anti-Cross Platform [PDF]

Why are we doing so many things cross-platform?... I consider this cross-platform issue a disease within Microsoft... We should be asking for specific innovations to restrict to Windows..."

Apple delivers ZFS Read/Write Developer Preview 1.1 for Leopard

Sun's high-performance ZFS file system has been hinted to be coming to Mac OS X Leopard for some time now. Even Sun's CEO said at one point that ZFS was on, but Apple quickly shot down that claim. Then ZFS was said to be available as a read-only option. Now a new episode in this ZFS soap opera reveals that the revolutionary file system could very well be coming for Leopard, even if it doesn't ship in time for the OS launch this month.Apple has now issued "ZFS Read/Write Developer Preview 1.1 for Leopard," an update to a previous build from June that enables full read, write, creation, and destruction abilities of ZFS file systems for developers testing Leopard. Before you get your hopes too high though, Apple confirms in the release notes of this developer preview that only read access will be shipping with 10.5.0. It gives no ETA for when full read/write features will be be available, nor a confirmation that full ZFS capabilities are coming specifically to Leopard.

Access Webapps in a Distraction-Free Browser with WebRunner | Lifehacker Australia

Windows/Mac/Linux: Mozilla's new stripped-down browser WebRunner offers distraction-free access to specific web applications (like Gmail), and integrates them into the desktop with an easy launch shortcut: WebRunner is based on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB). An SSB is an application with an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single web application. It's doesn't have the menus, toolbars and accoutrements of a normal web browser. Some people have called it a "distraction free browser" because none of the typical browser chrome is used.

Lifehacker AU to participate in Blog Action Day | Lifehacker Australia

Blog Action Day (October 15) is an annual blogger initiative to raise awareness and donation for a particular issue. This year's issue is the environment, so all participating blogs will devote their posts to environmental issues on that day.

Radio stations want Congress to look into major label recording contracts

the National Association of Broadcasters has called out the RIAA for a high-noon showdown before Congress. The NAB this week sent a letter to Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) suggesting that Berman's committee take a closer look at how labels pay—or don't pay—their artists. It's retaliation for the RIAA's attempt to force radio broadcasters to pay more to use music on the air, but that doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

How the RIAA tasted victory: a perfect storm which might not be repeated: Page 1

Last week, a federal jury took less than four hours to find Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old single mother from Brainerd, MN, liable for willful copyright infringement. When the tab—24 songs at $9,250 each—had been tallied up, Thomas found herself owing the record labels a whopping $222,000. In the aftermath of the case, it's important to look at why the jury came to the decision it did, and why other cases may not play out the same way.

Rumor: Apple TV to gain HD content, optical drive

It's been quite some time since Steve Jobs qualified the Apple TV as a "hobby" for Apple, meaning that the company is still kicking around a few ideas as to what direction it should take the device. Hopeful owners and critics alike have had no shortage of ideas on where the initial device went wrong and what the company should do to fix it. If rumors are to be believed, however, some to-do list items may finally get checked.

Apple updates 15" MacBook Pro battery firmware

Apple released Battery Update 1.3 for all MacBook Pro models with a 15 inch screen. The details are sketchy as usual: Battery Update 1.3 updates battery firmware and addresses battery performance issues with the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

The support article does go into some detail about when the battery is updated and how to determine if the update is installed already. Basically, once the update is installed on the system, it's applied to batteries when they're installed or when the system boots or wakes from sleep. The update is available through Software Update.

Leopard's Preview 4.0 previewed

Although it's not one of those applications that you hear a lot about, the Preview application gets a whole lot of love when it comes to PDF-related tasks and basic image conversion and editing. Preview is, however, a bit old-school when it comes to the interface and the design. But according to a new preview of Preview 4.0 at AppleInsider, both the design and the feature set are getting an overhaul in the new version.

Digg - Road to Mac OS X Leopard: Finder 10.5

The Finder in Mac OS X has long been reviled as the most glaring problem in the system, earning it the "Fix the F-ing Finder" meme. Apple has significantly updated the Finder for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, introducing some things old, some things new, some things borrowed, and, well, the icon is still blue. Here's a look at what's new.

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