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Ekiga 4.0 - they have a free SIP option too | 343 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Christmas gift for someone you hate: Windows 8 - Hmm a crippled Win7?
Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 11:25 AM EST
Had my first brush with a Win8 install this week...

Me: Win8...who recommended you install that!?
Him: Ah our IT guy... thought it was a bit odd... he is just about to retire...
Me: Ah well that explains it :-)


Christmas gift for someone you hate: Windows 8

Learn Windows 8 in 3 minutes (OK, it's really 4)

Win key+X gets anything you need for support purposes.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Christmas gift for someone you hate: Windows 8
Authored by: squib on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 02:19 PM EST
News pick link
[PJ: I haven't seen any analysis on this, but it occurs to me, is it possible that Microsoft's products are now so weird because it signed a patent license agreement with Apple and promised not to copy anything exactly?]

Here's my analysis:
Good OS's come from hybrid vigor
Weirdness comes from : A result of inbreeding

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Ekiga 4.0 - they have a free SIP option too
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 02:19 PM EST
Ekiga has a free SIP option (see link on their site).

And, someone commented in the linked to NewsPicks Article
that there is a way to encrypt the calls with another tool
that can be used with Ekiga 4.0.

Interesting.

These days, all VOIP calls should have encryption options
built-in by default.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Holding a Program in One's Head (2007)
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 08 2012 @ 03:36 PM EST
I have always believed that writing software is no different
than writing a story. I believed that because that was how
I did programming. You work out the story line in your head
and the code just flows via the keyboard. Often one has to
make revisions to make the plot work. Of course, you have
to be familiar enough with the language you are using such
that you think in that language. Stories and plots don't
get patents, why should software? Software is just an
expression of an idea born of free thought.

Just as software causes the bits in a computer to change,
reading a story cause the neural patterns in the brain
to change. Therefore, any story, speech, music, or any
other form of human expression should be patentable. I'm
sure already "they" are working on that one.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

WCIT-12 Leak seeks to define "government-controlled internet"
Authored by: kg on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 02:22 AM EST
Am I the only one who thinks it's ironic that the US bans
online gambling, along with some other online activities,
but is vehemently opposed to other nations seeking to
enforce their own mores and legislation within their
borders?

Yes, yes, it's about political repression, but what about
the US strong-arming other countries over IP/copyright
infringement issues that may not exist in said countries,
such as bit-torrent trackers, etc? The other countries
propose that they should be able to block content within
their countries. That at least is an honest recognition that
they can't pass laws that are valid globally. Not that I
agree with their laws, of course. I just find it very
ironic.

I hope the US and our allies are able to shut down this
attempt to strangle online speech. At the same time, it
would be nice if we would work to practice what we preach,
and not just apply it to other countries when it suits us.

---
IANAL
Linguist and Open Source Developer

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

ITU and internet (just a note of correction)
Authored by: YurtGuppy on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 10:46 AM EST

One correction to the ITU article.

ITU is not just Telco. It also oversees radio (wireless), particularly
international spectrum allocations.





---
a small fish in an even smaller pond

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • ITU and control - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 10:55 PM EST
  • Wireless Telegraphy - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 10:58 PM EST
run unmodified Apple OS X binaries on Linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 12:28 PM EST
Slashdot has a story on the Darling Project that allows users to run unmodified
Apple OS X binaries on Linux

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/12/08/2330225/darling-run-apple-os-x-binaries
-on-linux

Why would anyone want to do that? Are there any serious Mac programs left not
available on Windows?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

BSA Reaps Enormous Benefits from Software Patents
Authored by: Gringo_ on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 06:34 PM EST

link

The BSA needs to be put out of business. They are racketeering. Check out the cast of characters behind this criminal organization and you will find the usual suspects, like Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The iPad for Litigators:
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 07:51 PM EST
Newspick

Avoid the Snow White syndrome, thedroidlawyer

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Newspicks worthy article on Apple-Samsung?
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Sunday, December 09 2012 @ 10:19 PM EST
Since when is Germany "some countries"? Maybe I missed it, but the only injunction I remember was in Germany. News on the Apple Samsung war, and Judge Koh's attempt at World Peace, here.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

WPA2 Security (PJ's comment re The iPad for LItigators)
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 03:50 AM EST
[PJ: BT Chat is Bluetooth Chat. It's fun, no doubt. But I'm not sure one can rely on the privacy of Bluetooth 100% in open court. It depends on who else is there, how much they know about tech, and their ethics. It's said to be about as effective as WPA2, which is good, but not unbreakable.]
Perhaps I am out of date and somebody can point me to more recent information. My impression was that currently there are no known flaws with WPA2 and that if if you used 256 random bits for your passphrase probably even the NSA couldn't crack it. (At least not until their Utah facility is up and running. :-/ )

I am aware that monitoring a computer authenticating with WPA2 using tools such as aircrack-ng will yield information with which to do an off-line dictionary or brute-force attack on the passphrase and that with modern GPUs or by using Amazon's EC2 a lot of fire power can be thrown at that task. But I thought 256 bits of entropy (search space > 10^76) was still a bit much to crack in a reasonable length of time. Of course, if a passphrase of English (or any other language) words is used, all bets are off.

(Just for the record, I have used base64 encoding of output from /dev/urandom for passphrases. Then the argument becomes how good is the entropy in the pool and whether the algorithm in the kernel is adequate.)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Never mind the Quality, Feel the Weight
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 04:21 AM EST
If sheer market numbers mean win then so be it. Android Won, Windows Lost

I don't yet feel comfortable that the stability or security of Android is really better than all others. I know the headline says Windows Lost, but the article discusses all other brands as also ran. The stability and security of the Android app market is also still developing. More worrying tho' is the suggestion, picked up by a couple of commentors, that when Google rules the world I will get messages telling me how to vote?!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Never mind the Quality, Feel the Weight
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 04:23 AM EST
If sheer market numbers mean win then so be it. Android Won, Windows Lost

I don't yet feel comfortable that the stability or security of Android is really better than all others. I know the headline says Windows Lost, but the article discusses all other brands as also ran. The stability and security of the Android app market is also still developing. More worrying tho' is the suggestion, picked up by a couple of commentors, that when Google rules the world I will get messages telling me how to vote?!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Android Won. Windows Lost. Now what?
Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 08:08 AM EST
Link

Well, that is a rather long and comprehensive summary of what many of us have been expecting to happen soon. Comparison with the failed Kin, for instance, and mention of the tipping point, which M$ have now very clearly passed.

If Ballmer does not have some new and revolutionary technology up his sleeve, I predict that he will be seeking gainful employment elsewhere very soon. The declining M$ will follow the example of SCO by suing competitors and even customers in order to try to survive. As has been well demonstrated, that road leads to Chapter 11 in about 6 years and Chapter 7 liquidation in less than 10.

But Apple have passed their tipping point too, and are well into the phase of suing their competitors and suppliers, so the big question is, who will be gone first?

There should be more than enough there to keep Judge Gross in gainful employment, when the bankrupcies happen.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Copyright clampdown
Authored by: 351-4V on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 09:17 AM EST
It will lead to things like deep pocket inspections...
Now there's a Freudian Slip for you.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Seen on Slaw: an analysis of Google defamation case in Australia
Authored by: davecb on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 09:49 AM EST

At Slaw, the Canadian legal blog, Omar Ha-Redeye analyzes the facts and law behind Australian Wins Defamation Claim for Google and Yahoo Search Results

The thing that jumps out at a techie is that the judge distinguished Google's text search from the image search, and found the text search results non-defamatory.

Justice Beach noted that the Google Image search result was a cut and paste of its own creation. If Google's submissions were to be accepted, there would be no original publisher of the images at all. In obiter, Justice Beach indicated that the text snippets of the text results were not dissimilar. He emphasized the fact specific nature of this analysis, and distinguished this case from the others cited. Google could not claim to be an internet intermediary here, and played a less passive role,

This suggests that, if one knows what the difference was, one could change the search algorithm to avoid accidental defamation ...

--dave

---
davecb@spamcop.net

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Troll Turning Point? Gene Quinn's hope springs eternal...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 10 2012 @ 11:52 PM EST
As does mine, but I am not sure we have anything better than another
outlier in the case cited.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Is that an Apple leaf, or a Fig leaf?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 11 2012 @ 01:48 PM EST
> paper packaging for audio tapes.

Aah, Apple, the truly twentieth century company.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

WCIT and ITU
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 11 2012 @ 02:36 PM EST
Several of the Newspicks on this topic are holding a US-centric
view that overlooks some historic facts. In many countries the
government is the telco. Even until recent years (late 1980s)
in all British Commonwealth countries the government was the
telco. These governments are unwilling to give up what they
see as a God given right to control telecommunications
across their borders.

An interesting diplomatic question arises when the US
attempts to change the policies of these governments by
applying pressure in a technical forum like the ITU.

The ITU as a UN organ runs on one nation = one vote. This is
the UN that grew from the ashes of the Second World War
determined not to repeat the mistakes of the League of Nations
after the First World War. If voting were on a population basis
BRICS would wipe the floor with the rest of us.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • WCIT and ITU - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, December 11 2012 @ 05:04 PM EST
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