If I buy something, I own it.  It is mine.  That is the nature of property law.  If I want to pry it apart with pliers, that’s my right.  If I want to hook it up to a tesla coil to see it glow, that is my right.  If I want to take a piece of media that I bought and have the receipt for, and crack some silly encryption scheme that prevents me from enjoying it on the device of my choice, that is my right.

That is not piracy.  That is making personal use of something I bought and paid for in a way that suits me.

By legalizing “Format Shifting” but making the practice of cracking a digital lock punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, you effectively countermand the legality format shifting.  What most consumers don’t realize is that virtually all modern media contains some form of encryption or digital lock to prevent copying.  This goes back to the 80′s Macrovision standard on commercial VHS abd BetaMax tapes (which is way before most people realize digital locks started).

If I buy a hard copy CD/DVD of software, and want to back up an image of the CD/DVD in case the medium is damaged and I need to re-install it, there will be DRM I have to circumvent in order to perform that backup.

Also, the definition of “encryption” and “digital lock” is woefully grey.  In simple terms, encryption is merely an algorithm that must be decoded in order to view the contents of a “message” – be that message a coded letter or the movie on a Blue Ray disc.  Mathematically, and thereby legally, compression formats are no different than what most people think when they think of “encryption”.  To decompress and view the media, you must use an algorithm in order to “decode” the media.

All modern digital audio/video uses some form of compression.  To “format shift” such media from one device to another, it is often (actually, almost always) necessary to change the compression format.  Technically, this is breaking an encryption scheme.

So, if you want to “back up” a commercial CD (which typically uses the AAC compression format) to your digital media player (which typically prefers MP3 format), you would need to “crack” the AAC compression in order to “recode” the media to MP3.

Even better, if you want to download video that you yourself have taken using an HD cam-corder, and edit it with anything other than the editing software provided by the cam-corder manufacturer, you will inevitably need to recode the media to a different format, thereby “breaking” the encryption of a commercial device.

This legislation also goes against the intent of previous legislation to encourage consumer choice in the telecom market.  The CRTC, backed by legislation, has made telephone numbers portable for both land lines and cel phones, so that you can change carriers without losing your phone number.  However, with this legislation, what you will lose is the right to keep your equipment. Virtually all cel phones on the market today come with a “Carrier Lock” – a tiny piece of digital code which will only allow that cel phone to work with a single carrier.  The wording of the legislation is such that if you were to circumvent this lock, so you can use a device you paid for on the carrier of your choice, you would be in direct violation of the law, and subject to a fine of up to $5,000.

You are putting all the rights in the hands of the distributors, and taking them all away from the consumer.  You put some pleasant window dressing on your bill, but there are people out here, amongst the unwashed masses you so obviously care little about, that can see through the window dressing to the traps you have placed behind it.

And we will talk.  We will take the time to patiently explain the issues to our friends and families.  We will post messages on the internet.

We will spread the word and work hard to see this bill crushed.  And some of us will work hard to see your government collapse – the sooner the better, although some of us are patient enough to wait for the next election.  Because some of us have long memories.

Now Walt and Jesse are really the leads.  But one of the characters you gotta love is Saul Goodman, the world’s greatest lawyer (warning – the preceding link leads to an intentionally bad website).  As Jesse explained to Walt: “When it gets really bad, what you want is a criminal lawyer, and that’s this guy.”

Yah, I can hear the gasps in the audience now.  But it does happen.

My most recent nerdburn moment came a few minutes ago, when I finally got around to updating to the latest version of Thunderbird, bar none the best email client available, from the people who bring you Firefox, the best web browser on the planet (suck it up ChromeBoys, Firefox still rocks, and will continue to  blow Chrome out of the water until they get their extension framework worked out.  Not to mention using WebKit as the base rendering engine.  Webkit?  I mean, what were they thinking?)

Ummm…  where was I?

Oh, yah.  I finally got around to updating to Thunderbird 3.0 a few moments ago, almost an entire week after it was released.  Yes, my slackitude is shocking, but I had other things to do.  And upgrading my mail client could take an easy 60 seconds out of my life.  That’s 60 seconds I could be devoting to work (mmm… sure, I’ll get right on those TPS reports, boss), or fragging, or spending time with my wife and kid.

But, a week is long enough to wait.

Thing is, when I updated, two highly critical plugins were deemed in-compatible.

Plugin Incompatible #1:  Adblock Plus.  A lot of people don’t even realize you can add ABP to Thunderbird, but you can.  And it’s wicked handy for keeping your RSS feeds advertising free.  I was able to solve that with a quick click of the “check for updates” button.  I can now safely leach info from the web without contributing to anyone’s ad revenue.  The way God intended news to be consumed.

Plugin Incompatible #2: Lightning.  Frack.  And check for updates was no help whatsoever.  For those who may not know, Lightning is the Calendar add on for Thunderbird.  A while back, it had been suggested that Lightning was going to be fully integrated with TBird 3.0, and would no longer be an add on.  But alas, it wasn’t to be so.  And the Lightning development team fell behind, and have yet to release an “official” build that’s compatible with TBird 3.0

And that sucks.  My entire life is organized in that calendar.  Most importantly, it’s what keeps me from getting disowned by reminding me of family birthdays and such.

So, my need to have the latest and shiniest software, along with my arrogance with handling open source software, almost killed my calendar.  Almost.

And this is where being a geek comes in handy.  I knew that there was no way in hell I was the first person to get burned by this.  And I knew that because Lightning is open source, there was most likely a hacked build, or a semi official “nightly” available for me. And yup, a few moments googling led me to the developper’s blog, which kindly pointed straight to what I needed.  Sweet.  No need to wait for it to be officially released.

All in all, I spent more time writing this post, that I did upgrading TBird, having a momentary panic attack about losing my calendar, and then searching for and fixing the problem.

And really, that’s as it should be.  If it was some closed source piece of software (Outlook anyone?), an upgrade that breaks a third party extension usually means you’re S.O.L.  But it’s an open source project.  So the fix was already out there.  Actually, the fix was out before even TBird 3 was out.  And how cool is that?

Damn cool.

The WarMouse, also called the OpenOffice Mouse (which seems to be how they’re branding it), falls into the monstrosity category.

No, this isn’t some joke mock up.  At least, as far as I can tell it isn’t a joke.  If it is, then even Wired got fooled.

Can you imagine trying to work with that thing?  How many times a day do you think you’d hit the wrong button?  And that joystick on the side – exactly how many hours of practice would it take to become proficient with that?

Sometimes, I come across a page with interesting ‘comments.’  For those who might not know, most languages have a function where you can enter snippets of information that won’t be executed – they’re basically cheat sheet notes for the coder, or also used to help other people who might need to work on the code later on.  You’ll find all kinds of gems in code comments.  I’ve seen code with Haikus inserted, bits of poetry, rants against ex wives…  I even know a website where the author maintains his personal Blog within the comments of the website.  It’s un-viewable to anyone who doesn’t read the code of the site.  However, that site is a well known, widely used forum for web developers, so there’s probably a lot of people who read it.

Anyway, I was reading the code of a web page today, and came across some comments that reflect a certain, personality, of the developer.  It’s a big commercial site, so I think the coder was probably exercising a bit of “freedom” by inserting one or two extraneous comments.  I’ll share a couple of them here.

// Look!  A clock.  Niiiice.

(someone is proud of their spiffy clock generator code)

// Yay for Suckerfish!

(actually, this is a nice little tip of the hat – Suckerfish is a well known and widely used chunk of code used to generate those spiffy drop-down menus you see all over the web)

// Let’s define the innumerable global arrays that Javascript will use to keep track of things.

(someone’s a little bored with grinding out variables)

// …that’s a bit of an overstatement, don’t you think? there might be a lot, but innumerable?!

(someone’s boss is reading their code comments)

// Various data arrays.

(yup, they’re still bored with grinding out data chunks and variables)

Ok, maybe that’s only interesting to me.  I dunno.  Seemed kinda cute at the time.

One thing I should mention.  If you’re a sensitive type who’s easily offended by foul language, never, ever, read the code for the Linux kernel.   Linux kernel writers have issues with cuss words.

Right now, I have both an iPhone (personal) and a BlackBerry (business – paid for by my company).  I have them set up to manage email and my appointment calendar.  I even have RDP and VNC installed on my iPhone, so I can remote manage several computers from anywhere I can get a cel signal.

I have big data packages for both, and they get used.

And I  hate both of them with a rare passion.

They’re like electronic leashes.  Everywhere I go, I emit a steady dribble of beeps, bloops, and musical ringtones – (my iPhone in particular, I have a number of custom, “unique to me because I made them” ringtones, so I can determine what kind of call is coming in, or who is calling without having to even look at the caller ID).  Again, the level of customization and personalization I’ve commited to the devices might fool you into thinking I’m enamoured with the devices.

But let me stress again how far that is from the truth.

I customize them because I have no choice but to deal with them.  I go to lengths to make them less annoying.  Mostly, it fails.  I mean, it works to the extent that a snippet of late 70′s, early 80′s garage punk is a way better way of being notified of an incoming call than some chirping blip-bleep.  But it doesn’t make dread the call itself much less.

Half of my calendar year (excluding holidays) is spent “on call” – I can be no more than 15 minutes away from an internet connection (and thank god for mobile 3g sticks…  Does that count as a phone too?).  when the phone rings, there’s a good chance that something has gone wrong.  It’s going to be complicated.  It’s going to eat my time.  And it’s come at an inconvenient hour. Say, dinner time, or when a sane person should be comfortably in bed.

I also have to monitor pages and emails that are automatically generated by a mass of servers when they auto-detect something out of norm.  Given that we’re talking about hundreds of servers, it’s pretty much a given that the automated stream of error spam is pretty constant.  And even these are segregated by priority.  Some are more informational “Hey, Mr. On-Call man, I got a little busy at 8pm.  Try and figure out why when you get a chance.”  These come as emails.  A low tone bloop on my phone that I can (and usually do) sleep through.  Some are more urgent, of the “Hey, Server X isn’t responding to pings, and it’s IMPORTANT!!!” These come in as pages, and the noise is…  Well, let’s just say I’m not likely to sleep through it.

And it goes beyond that.  Because email is so important to the modern workflow, the fact that I can respond to it from anywhere, to a certain degree means the expectation is to actually do that.  I’m one of those guys you see who parks his car, steps out, and whips out his smart phone to read and respond to emails while he finishes walking the last couple of blocks into the office.  Distractedly missing his floor on the elevator (or absentmindedly walking off on the wrong floor), face buried in a BlackBerry.

From my side of that picture, it kinda sucks.  “Always on” is, well, draining.

When I have time off, I tend to turn my phones off.  Completely.  For days at a time if I can.  And then my mom ends up getting annoyed that I don’t return her calls (sorry mom, it’s not you – it’s the phone).

I dunno, I guess I just needed to get that off my chest.

And, well, the dang phone’s incessant reminders and nagging me with problems is the reason I missed the last two days’ worth of posts.

As a teenager, it became a time for late night horror film sleepovers.  Later, it was costume parties, and then as a young adult, all night costumed dance-a-thons at the “in” club of the moment.

But when it gets right down to it, for me Halloween is, and always will be, about those younger kids and that gleeful, chaotic, sugar buzzed night.

This year, the weather was pleasant, and the trick or treaters were out in force.  I stayed home and handed out candy to what was a record for us in this house (where we’ve lived for the past 7 Halloweens).

My wife bundled up our 10 month old and took her up and down the street, because you only get one first Halloween.  And even though our toddler likely won’t remember it, that’s no reason for her to miss it.

And she brought back some news that really surprised me.  Nearly 3/4′s of the houses in our neighbourhood were dark.  The residents either out, or pretending they were out. No decorations.  No carved jack-o-lanterns.  No spirit of the day.

For some reason, that just made me sad.  Obviously, the families with children were still participating.  Like I said, the kids were out in force.  But what about everyone else?

It’s about community spirit.  It’s about doing something for the next generation, so they’ll have fond memories when they grow up.

Come on people, quit being such spoil sports and grinches.  Set aside the origin of the holiday.  It’s not about witchcraft and superstition anymore.  It’s about sharing a fun night with friends and children.  It’s about showing those children that people are basically good and generous, even if you don’t know them.

I present this year’s pumpkins:

I think I’ll stick with the tech theme of the past couple of days, as it’s what’s on my mind.

In a couple of unrelated events, Open Source Software has apparently made some giant leaps forward in U.S. Government circles, with two significant announcements within days of each other.

First, we’ll cover something that’s highly visible to the outside world.  On Saturday, October 24th, the official White House website launched the new Obamacized version.  While some might be thinking “about time” – it actually takes a while to accomplish a major redesign of a large website.  Add in typical government political/bureaucratic “issues”, and I’m surprised it got done this quickly.

Mostly, I could care less about the White House website.  It’s not like I’m an American, or really care about the info the site contains.  What’s interesting to me, from a technological standpoint, is that the site has changed the underlying technology from a closed source, commercial, content management system (CMS), backed my Microsoft IIS servers, to an open source CMS backed by Linux/Apache servers.

Under previous administrations (and no, not just Bush, but Clinton before him), the U.S. Fed has been notoriously gun-shy of open source projects.  Big Business and Big Government likes the comfort of buying from Big Business.  They have trouble, culturally, figuring out why people would donate their time to create a fundamental technology, and how such a “movement” could produce good, reliable software.

Whichever side of the Open/Closed source argument you may find yourself, what it comes down  to, in a lot of ways, is whether you have more faith in “the masses” or more faith in “big business.”

For the Obama Administration to make such a public site Open Source, is a strong indication of where they place their faith.  Not surprising, given how he ran his campaign.

Related, the U.S. Department of Defense Deputy CIO Dave Wennergren has signed and released “Clarifying Guidance on Open Source Software.”

Reported by both O’Reilly Radar and NetworkWorld, the “clarification” is a big deal, and should allow for open source software to make inroads into DoD procurements.

All the clarification says, in essence, is that when considering procurement, Open Source Software should be considered no different from Commercial software.  And that actually means a lot.  The U.S. Military has long held great cultural faith in Big Business to supply it’s needs.  Established, if bloated and expensive, Defense Contractors (Think Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc.) usually seem to edge out the “little guy” in most defence contracts.  Which is not surprising, really.  The military is a naturally cautious organization.

Overall, these two events should not be underestimated.  For two such conservative, staid, government entities to consider open source a viable option, speaks greatly to how far Open Source has come in the past two decades.

For those of you contemplating upgrading to Win7, or making any major OS upgrade (be it Mac, Linux, Unix, Solaris, whatev…), here’s some advice i posted on a forum, I thought I’d repost it here, on the off chance somebody reads it.

When a new OS comes out, if your current one is working, keep using it until the following:

3 months bare minimum have elapsed since release, preferably 6 months. This gives others a chance to uncover any hidden bugs and come up with solutions.

You have researched a clear migration plan for all critical software. Some will work, some will need to be updated, some will need to be replaced. This is a good time to figure out which ones you can live without. Use the 3 to 6 months after the OS’s release to figure out which is which. (Sounds tough, but thanks to google, you can figure this out usually in a couple of hours).

You have backed up all your data files. Not just the critical ones. ALL of them. If you don’t, then that one spreadsheet you thought you’d never need is the one you suddenly can’t live without 6 months after you’ve killed it.

Pull your old system hard drive and set it on a shelf. Hard drives are cheap. New OS, New Hard Drive. I can’t stress this last point enough. Don’t do an “upgrade”, failure rates are really high for any OS. By pulling the old primary drive and setting it aside, you have an instant fall back point should things go horribly wrong.

Disconnect any secondary hard drives/storage, but leave in place.

Install that spanking new hard drive you bought for your new OS. Install new OS on said new hard drive. If everything goes according to plan, start reconnecting the secondary hard drives/storage.

One by one, install your software according to your migration plan.

If things go wrong, try a second time just in case you fat fingered. After the second failure, re-insert the old hard drive you had with your previous OS and software. Go back to Google and try and figure out why it all went so wrong.

It sounds time consuming and labour intensive, and… well, it kinda is. But if you do it right, “transition day” is far more likely to succeed, and has a much lower stress level.

And the above advice applies to any significant OS upgrade. Mac, Linux, MS, Solaris, whatever.

Joe Consumer won’t do it. That’s why Joe Consumer isn’t making a good living in IT. Don’t be Joe Consumer.