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It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Weblogging and commentary by Chip Rosenthal

Austin Considers Open Source Software

Submitted by chip on Sat, 20-Dec-2003 - 2:40 pm
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Link: Austin tests desktop Linux waters.

Two words that make any technology manager tremble: software audit. These audits examine every computer with a fine-toothed comb, ensuring every installed program is properly licensed. It's tough to assure absolute compliance across hundreds (or thousands) of desktop machines, and the penalties for unlicensed software can be severe.

Over a year ago, the City of Austin encountered this nightmare. Microsoft held out the threat of a software audit. Some cities, such as Houston, have responded to the threat by switching to another vendor. Austin, instead, ponied up for a pricey enterprise license.

Open source advocates, myself included, were disappointed by this move. It turns out, maybe it was a shrewd step. The enterprise license allowed the city to buy compliance and breathing room. The city has been using that time to evaluate open source alternatives. Their finding: many desktops could run just fine on open source software.

When Microsoft came to the city, there was little choice: either pay through the nose or enter a protracted battle. When the current enterprise agreement terminates at the end of 2004, the city will be in a much better position. Even if there are only nominal open source deployments, the city is in a significantly stronger position to negotiate better license terms with Microsoft.

That's open source at its best: restoring competition to the software marketplace.

Adventures in Customer Disservice

Submitted by chip on Thu, 11-Dec-2003 - 9:23 pm
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My AT&T prepaid phone card stopped working. I punched in the PIN and it just said, "For assistance contact customer service." No indication what the problem is--let alone that there is a problem.

RSS Changes

Submitted by chip on Wed, 10-Dec-2003 - 1:23 pm
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I've made a number of changes to the RSS feeds at this site. I've upgrade the 0.91 feed to a version 2.0 feed. That feed is now preferred to the version 1.0 feed. Both the sidebar XML button and the header <LINK> tag point there.

Both feeds are running tweaked versions of the Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby templates. I tweaked the 2.0 template by changing <guid> from funky references to permalinks, adding <dc:creator> information, and dropping <content> full entries. I can't do full content because a lot of my blog entries have relative URLs. Even if I fixed that, I've got some qualms about using RSS for blog reading (as opposed to blog update notifies).

I'm considering eliminating the 1.0 feed completely at some future time. Feedback on that or other issues concerning my RSS are welcome.

Open Source for Community Networks

Submitted by chip on Wed, 10-Dec-2003 - 11:36 am
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Link: Community Building with Open Source Software

Monday, I participated in a panel at the Sixth Annual National Community Network Conference called "Open Source Software: Choices and Considerations." I did this conference last year too. I think maybe they asked me back because I actually used open source tools--not PowerPoint--to prepare my presentation. (Or, maybe they were just desperate for speakers.)

Identity Theft: Capitalizing on Fear

Submitted by chip on Wed, 10-Dec-2003 - 10:30 am
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My Dad asked my opinion on an identity theft protection option offered by his credit card company. It's not something I'd considered before. I try to guard my information where possible. ("No Mr. Video Store Person, you cannot have my social security number to setup an account." Besides, I'm not a very attractive target.

Please Explain this Evil

Submitted by chip on Fri, 05-Dec-2003 - 5:08 pm
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Can anybody please explain to me why Sprint PCS can offer the ability to add options to my cellular phone plan--and make it as simple as clicking a button on a web page--but cannot delete no-longer-wanted options? They say the computer won't let them and I need to switch to a new plan.

Under this new plan my basic monthly charge goes up $5/month, but the total goes down $5/month (because I now can drop the unwanted option), I get a ton more minutes and they said they'd waive the committment to a long-term agreement. In the end, I'm satisfied with that.

Still, this seems like a darn inept way to run a railroad.

On Javascript Email Obfuscation

Submitted by chip on Fri, 05-Dec-2003 - 2:42 pm
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In a recent entry I discussed the "entity encoding obfuscation" technique to protect email addresses posted to web pages from spammers, and I demonstrated it is ineffective. So, the obvious question is, "What is effective?" Several people proposed techniques that employ Javascript. The methods they propose all appear effective, but I'm not enthusiastic about any of them.

Another Day, Another Portal

Submitted by chip on Thu, 04-Dec-2003 - 11:36 am
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I seem to be creating a cottage industry out of coding backends to personal publishing portals. It's keeping me busy, I'm getting very good at it, and--of course--not making a bloody cent on the work.

I helped develop the Austin Bloggers web site, which aggregates articles that webloggers write about Austin. Last week, I built a portal for on-line journal writers called Holidailies 2003. The Holidailies project, now in its fourth year, consists of journalers who make "a solemn vow" to write an article every day during the month of December. It's quite an endeavor, especially considering that the only thing I've ever seen journal writers solemnly vow is to have a second margarita. (Oh boy, I'm going to get mail now...)

And So It Begins

Submitted by chip on Sun, 30-Nov-2003 - 10:10 pm
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I knew once Congress passed the CAN-SPAM act it would only be a matter of time before the spammers responded. The response I expected would be for them to start sending new forms of spam. See, the problem is Congress didn't pass a law that outlawed spam. Instead, they passed one that legalized it and prescribed how spammers could go about doing it.

Tonight's spam load contained one with this paragraph:

It is not our intent tosend unwanted mail. This e-Mail issent under the FederalRegulatory Laws of the United States..If this message has reached you in error, and you wish to block furthermailings, simply click BLOCK ADDRESS and send a blank message.

This spam appears to be completely compliant with the CAN-SPAM legislation.

I've got a feeling I'll be seeing a lot more of these this holiday season. Consider it a little gift from our elected legislators.

Popular Spam Protection Technique Doesn't Work

Submitted by chip on Wed, 26-Nov-2003 - 5:03 pm
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Spammers obtain their list of victims primarily by harvesting web pages. They use special address extraction software that will spider a site and extract all of the email addresses off its web pages. Entity encoded address obfuscation is one technique to protect your web pages against harvesting. It's popular and easy to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.