4th Week: About Time

BBC News has early coverage of a report, due out later today, with the Institute of Public Policy Research's report into a review of copyright laws. Read it at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6095612.stm.

From the article:

Copyright laws are "out of date" and must be updated so MP3 player users can make copies of CDs without breaking the law, according to a think tank.

Yes! That's exactly right! And, my favourite quote of them all:

It is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.

3rd Week: Good news from the world of broadcasting

At long last, BBC Parliament will be available in full screen format on Freeview from November 13, reports Digital Spy. (See the official BBC press release here.)

Unlike satellite and cable TV, Freeview has only a limited bandwidth available; there's a limit to the number of channels that can be broadcast. Until now, BBC Parliament has been broadcast quarter-screen, in the same video stream as the two News Multiscreen video loops; on both, MHEG text screens cover the other side of the screen.

With Parliament now in full-screen, this either means the end of News Multiscreen on Freeview, or else enough room for a few more screens. Or perhaps they've managed to squeeze out an extra channel's bandwidth by reducing the quality of the others (BBC Four/CBeebies, 301/302) But which is it to be?

The discussion of this has spread to eight pages on the DS forums...

3rd Week: Happy Release Day

You really have to wonder what was going through their minds, though...

http://blog.pcplus.co.uk/page/pcplus?entry=ms_to_firefox_team_congratulations

3rd Week: Food for thought for Linux geeks

This was written in July, but I've only just found it. Written by A Y Siu (a name I recognise from the Kubuntu forums, as it happens), it debunks the myth of "the year of the Linux desktop", while simultaneously destroying the myth that "Linux is not ready for the desktop". An interesting read...

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktopmyth

Essential reading for anyone waiting for Linux to break through into the mainstream; and for anyone who's heard of Linux, has maybe been told that it's better than Windows (by some Linux geek like me).

2nd Week: Latest Pictures - Anti-Lab Protest

These were the best shots I could get of the anti-lab brigade (it's no longer sufficient to call them "protesters" thanks to Pro-Test, which causes confusion) - I really didn't want to hang out of my (ground floor) window as the protesters marched past, waving a camera, in case one of the ALF decided to make good their arson threat. Anyway, here are the photos.

The banner reads "FREE SPEECH" and has a website address. I'm not going to link to it. :-P

There were quite a few of them - they took a full four minutes to pass by outside.

And finally they depart... many of them seem to be holding banners saying "REMEMBER GEORGE". Unfortunately, I don't, though apparently he's a miserable-looking chimp. (Because there are so many chimps being experimented on in the new lab.) Also, some people were carrying banners saying "SUPPORT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH - STOP VIVISECTION" or something similar. These people are, presumably, either confused or misled. I'm a Computer Scientist. The argument that "computers can do simulations so we don't need real animals" doesn't wash with me.

2nd Week: OCaml

How to make the ML programming language, for beginners.

1. Take all the worst parts of Haskell.
2. Make all those Haskell error messages even more obscure.
3. Add in the noisiness of Oberon.
4. Provide contradictory documentation.

I have no idea what I wrote but, after 90 minutes of fiddling around with punctuation marks, the practical works.

2nd Week: MythTV Database Issues

OK, for the second time in my life I had to scour the internet for the solution to a problem with a new installation of MythTV (from CVS). I'm putting this here so I can find it again in future!

If you try and run mythfrontend or mythtv-setup and get errors such as the following:

QSqlDatabase: QMYSQL3 driver not loaded
QSqlDatabase: available drivers:
2006-10-20 11:14:52.435 New DB connection, total: 1
2006-10-20 11:14:52.436 Unable to connect to database!
2006-10-20 11:14:52.437 No error type from QSqlError? Strange...
QSqlQuery::exec: database not open
QSqlQuery::exec: database not open
2006-10-20 11:14:52.496 DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
No error type from QSqlError? Strange...
2006-10-20 11:14:52.572 Unable to connect to database!
2006-10-20 11:14:52.573 No error type from QSqlError? Strange...

... then the solution is twofold. Firstly make sure you have the Qt MySQL drivers installed (Ubuntu people: that's libqt3-mt-mysql). Secondly - and this is the bit that always takes ages to find... You need an /etc/ld/so.conf file that contains the path to the said driver. Ubuntu people: /usr/local/lib.

That's it. That's what takes hours to solve. Not any more.

1st Week: Help! Help! We're being repressed!

TechWeb reports on the licenses for Microsoft Windows Vista, due out... well, some time. So just how much will you "own" of Vista, should you buy it?

Well, of course the answer to that is "none", and has been for some time thanks to the barely-legal End User License Agreement ("this software is licensed, not sold", among other things). As an end-user, though, Microsoft are trying very hard to control what do with their new baby.

Ever upgraded a computer, ditched the old one and installed Windows on the new one? You can now only do that once. Says the license:

The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device".

Interestingly enough, this sort of limitation seems to be illegal, at least in America. In 2001, in a case between Adobe and SoftMan, the judge ruled that

...the terms of the Adobe EULA at issue prohibit licensees from transferring or assigning any individual Adobe product that was originally distributed as part of a Collection unless it is transferred with all the software in the original Collection. This license provision conflicts with the first sale doctrine in copyright law, which gives the owner of a particular copy of a copyrighted work the right to dispose of that copy without the permission of the copyright owner.

More coverage of that story was at Linux Weekly News and The Register.

It gets better, though it might take some explaining. Unless you're a techie yourself, then the following might go right over your head:

You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.

"Virtual machines" or VMs are, as computers become more powerful, becoming more popular. Tools like VMware allow you to run an operating system within an operating system. You can boot into Windows, then boot up a Linux VM, and run both operating systems simultaneously. As well as being useful for developers, who need to test their products on a variety of different platforms, it has benefits for home users: Why worry about spyware and viruses when surfing the web, when you can load a VM with a browser, use that, and once you're done you can restore it to its initial state (including getting rid of stored personal data etc).

None of which violates the new EULA, as long as Vista is the "host" (that is, the real) operating system. Where this gets interesting is when you look to the developments that both Intel and AMD are making in the field of virtualisation. It's easiest to explain with reference to a diagram, so here's one from a presentation "Xen and the Art of Virtualisation":
What this shows is four different operating systems, running each as if they were the host OS, thanks to the Xen layer. Microsoft's EULA stamps all over this party (though it should be said, the same restrictions do not apply to the more expensive and undoubtedly more bloated versions of Vista, just Home Basic and Home Premium).

Oh - and if Vista decides to believe you've got a pirated copy of it, whether you have or not, it will severely limit your use of the OS and your computer. If you're one of the law-abiding people who buy Vista in the shops, you could find it not letting you use the internet, other than Internet Explorer for one hour at a time (gah, it's like my parents!).

Think you're safe with a genuine copy? Past experience tells us otherwise, as this article reports.

Scrolling through the posts on Microsoft's official WGA Validation Problems forum is like reading accident reports from a multiple-car pileup on Interstate 5. Many of the victims are completely innocent and have no idea what hit them, and cleaning up the mess can be a nightmare.

If you're a Windows user, and/or planning to upgrade to Vista if/when it is released, that should send a shiver down your spine. You have been warned...

1st Week: A Conversation with Mel

This had me in fits of laughter for whole minutes at a time...

(13:11:31) Mel: dude
(13:11:44) Mel: were's te ceapest place I ca get a ew keyaord, do you tik?
...
(13:12:26) Mel: it's gettig aoyig ow
(13:12:31) Mel: it was oly oe letter yesterday
(13:12:42) Mel: ow it's 3
...
(13:15:40) Mel: aaaaa
(13:15:53) Mel: (tat was laugig witout cocosats)
... We then proceeded to almost order a keyboard from ebuyer, before realising that they would only ship to my billing address (Portsmouth) for my first order...
(13:39:02) Mel: or I could use my ousemate's!
(13:39:14) Mel: wy did't tat occur to me efore
...
(13:43:31) Mel: I've lost te questio mark as well ow
(13:43:50) Mel: sad

This, folks, is the sort of weird thing that happens in Oxford.

1st Week: Famous people! Questions! And a textbook

Slashdot reports on Jarosław "sztywny" Rzeszótko's E-mail interview with some of the greats in the computing world, including Linux creator Linus Torvalds and C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup. It's a very good read; here are my personal highlights...

- What do you think is the most important skill every programmer should possess?

Linus Torvalds:

It’s a thing I call "taste".

I tend to judge the people I work with not by how proficient they are: some people can churn out a _lot_ of code, but more by how they react to other peoples code, and then obviously by what their own code _looks_ like, and what approaches they chose. That tells me whether they have "good taste" or not, and the thing is, a person without "good taste" often is not very good at judging other peoples code, but his own code often ends up not being wonderfully good.

- Do you think mathematics and/or physics are an important skill for a programmer? Why?

Tim Bray (co-author of XML and ATOM specs):

In my case, I’ve almost never used my university-level math to support my programming.

- What is your favourite book related to computer programming?

Linus Torvalds:
I have a soft spot for Andrew Tanenbaum’s "Operating Systems: Design and Implementation". (This is on my reading list for next term! Good to know it has pedigree...)

Go, read the rest for yourself - and tell me if it was worth me doing all that Maths last year...

0th Week: Customer Service

How's this for customer service...
I buy a secondhand book online from abebooks.com its Java In A Nutshell Deluxe Edition which is supposed to come with a CD. It didn't, and the book's been out of print for quite a while now.

One short E-mail to O'Reilly (the publisher), and a few days later I have a brand-new CD on my desk. Two thumbs up, O'Reilly!

0th Week: Tired!

Wow, I'm tired... I got to bed at 3am after the St. Aldate's half-night of prayer; Dave and I were both on the A/V team  for much of the evening, though we were able to take it in shifts. It was a really encouraging evening, and one that made me really feel (almost) as at home here as at my home church. I even got to use my nice Risky semi-transparent stuff (I think it's fast becoming my signature piece, quite worryingly). It's little touches like that that make the difference.

So, got in about 2.40, and really fancied a cheese toastie. Bed about 3, but (surprisingly, as I was exhausted) found it really difficult to get to sleep. Woke up about 11, and I should probably get dressed somewhen soon...

My ridiculously busy Freshers' Week continues... it's the SJC Freshers' Fair, and OICCU Churches Fair, both this afternoon. I'm sure Freshers' Week wasn't this busy last year... I'd better get dressed somewhen soon. And do some laundry. And find some lunch. And so on.

Edit: This blog has been going for a year yesterday! Go me!

0th Week: Freshers' Fair

I helped out with the CompSoc stall at the OUSU Freshers' Fair this afternoon. Gave out some free Ubuntu CDs, and had a long chat with some of the guys on the Toshiba stall about Linux.

I'm really, really tempted to buy a laptop...

0th Week: Consumer Warning

Please read this consumer warning. This stuff really exists and you should know about it. Please also pass this onto anyone else who may not be aware of what DRM is.

Warning: DRM! Digital Restrictions Management

This holiday season when you bring home a new electronic device, will you be bringing an intruder into your home? Will you and your family members end up being monitored and reported on by the software installed on these devices?

DRM is used to restrict what you and your family can do with the electronic devices and media purchased. It is an attempt by technology and media companies to take away your rights. DRM Means: No fair use. No purchase and resell. No private copies. No sharing. No backup. No swapping. No mix tapes. No privacy. No commons. No control over our computers. No control over our electronic devices.

DRM software and hardware monitors and controls your family's behavior.

Did you know that iPod users are restricted from transferring their music to other non-Apple devices because the music downloaded from iTunes is encrypted - locked with DRM? Apple allows you to write an audio CD, but will leave you with very lousy sound quality if you ever want to take your music to a new portable device in a compressed format.

Did you know that Sony Music was caught secretly planting DRM “rootkits” on customers computers. All it required was for you to play the CD you had purchased from them...

DRM is more than a nuisance. The film and music industry are setting the agenda to increase their control. They have demanded that technology companies impose DRM to deliver for them what their political lobbying to change copyright law never has: they aim to turn every interaction with a published work into a transaction, abolishing fair use and the commons, and making copyright last forever. By accepting DRM users unwittingly surrender their rights and invite a deeper surveillance. This will put your family's viewing, listening, reading, browsing records on file with them.

What gives them that right?

Stay away from DRM-dependent products like Blu-ray and HD-DVD, iTunes, Windows Media Player, Zune, Amazon Unbox...

Stay away from retailers who insist on making DRM part of the package.

Stop financing the people who want to restrict you.

Find out more at www.DefectiveByDesign.org and find 10 easy ways you can help make others aware.

Thanks for reading.

0th Week: Every TINYINT Helps

Tesco are to launch their own-branded software, reports the BBC.

This new range, to be launched later this month, includes office software, "security systems" (presumably antivirus and firewall), photo editing, and a CD/DVD burning suite. Now, this is an interesting move... From the report:

"When it comes to software there is little choice and prices are high. Our new range of software changes this, bringing choice and value to the market that has offered little of either for too long." -- Tesco buyer Daniel Cook

I have no doubt that these aren't the real motives for the venture - rather, increased profits and market share are, quite understandably. But it struck me just how close the stated reasons are to those of the free/OSS movement. Providing choice in a market that's offered little? As for value, you don't get much better than free (as in beer).

Of course, Tesco haven't hired a vast army of programmers for this; rather, they've signed an agreement with Formjet PLC, which gives a clue as to exactly what sort of products we'll be buying with our cornflakes. (Don't delve too deeply on their website, though, or you'll end up with lots of "Untitled Document"s.)

Could this be a big blow for OSS in the UK? With cheap software available from the UK's leading supermarket, will fewer people turn to free alternatives like OpenOffice? Or will it make people realise that not all software is made in Redmond, and start looking for alternatives?

Tesco's software range launches in late October in about 100 stores.