Technology

I've started using the Mozilla Firefox web browser. I had tried the predecessor Firebird browser, but I didn't like it enough to make the move. I think I'm ready now.

Firefox feels faster and more robust. There remains, however, a few missing functions I wish it had.

My biggest dislike is the lack of menu controls for cookie handling. I configure the browser to "ask before accepting" cookies. Moreover, I usually tell Firefox to remember which sites I want to allow cookies and which to block. These are pretty basic functions, offered both in Firefox and Mozilla. The problem is that if I want to change a site, Firefox forces me to go into the cookie configuration, look up the site, and manually delete it from the list. Mozilla offers a quick command on the menus.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any controls for animated images. In Mozilla, the Stop command will freeze animated images. Also, you can force endless-looped images to play only once, or even suppress animation completely. Firefox lacks these features.

There is hope. Firefox is remarkably extensible, so it's possible that someday an extension will be written to add them. On the other hand, the extensions are not a panacea. There is not a functioning remove procedure. Also, they can be clunky. For instance, the Bookmark Checker adds important functionality, but not very well. You can, for example, check all the links in a collapsed folder, but when you expand the folder to view inside the link statuses will be removed.

Nonetheless, for a version 0.8 technology preview release, it's remarkably solid and functional. I think Firefox may become my browser of choice--even on those operating systems that bundle their own web browser.

If you shop at H-E-B (and if you're a Texan, you probably do) you may have noticed the EZ-Ds (link to Flashturbated website omitted) display at the checkout. These are the "48-hour DVDs" that self-destruct upon exposure to air.

Wired News is reporting that H-E-B is terminating the EZ-Ds experiment early. Good riddance, I say.

There was significant concern about the environmental impact of the use-once-and-discard discs. The EZ-Ds manufacturer tried to fight some of the backlash by setting up a return program for the expired discs.

I'm also concerned about what the EZ-Ds represent with respect to our ability to own and use digital media. The manufacturer, a division of Disney, tried to position EZ-Ds as an alternate to renting. The studios, however, would love nothing more than a video scheme that offers them complete control over use. Imagine how much happier the entertainment industry would be if all CDs and DVDs self-destructed within a few days. EZ-Ds represent a step in that direction.

This isn't the first time the entertainment industry has tried to place stringent controls on the use of video media. Several years ago, the industry tried to push the DIVX video disc over the then fledgling DVD standard. They liked DIVX because you had to keep paying fees in order to use their discs. Video fans, fortunately, saw right through it, and that scheme died.

The EZ-Ds are still available around town. Hopefully the other sellers will follow suit. This is just a bad idea that should be scrapped like a 48-hour video disc.

Links: Optical Drives & Recording Formats and Burning CDs and DVDs.

I thought this pair of articles was a great overview of the current state of optical storage technology. If you've ever wondered about those odd option settings on your CD burning software or been confused by the many standards for writable DVDs, these articles will answer your questions.

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.)

I just phoned SBC and asked them to terminate my phone service. Come Monday, I will be without wired phone service. Between cable Internet and cellular phone, it just wasn't being used for much. It was costing me about $35/month for this underused service. I can throw a small part of that at an upgraded cellular plan and pocket the rest.

You could say that SBC spam cost them a customer. The final straw that prompted the cancelation was their $5 late charges. My bill paying cycle is out of sync with their bill sending cycle, so I almost always got hit with the late charge. This irritated me greatly.

Some time back, I used their electronic billing and it worked great. I'd be notified when my bill was ready, and jump over to my bill paying service to schedule a payment. Then, however, they started spamming my email with the most ridiculous crap, like promotions for the San Antonio Spurs. I phoned corporate offices in Dallas, but they failed to stop the spam. I ultimately got it to stop by canceling the on-line billing service and having them purge my email address from their databases.

So I'm thinking that maybe if they hadn't misused my address for spamming, I probably still would be a customer. I would have still had the ebill service, I wouldn't have gotten slapped with the late charges and I wouldn't have gotten pissed off at them. (The business office person worked hard to keep my business, including offering to rebate a couple months' late charges.)

You know, at one time giving up your land line was a terribly heroic thing. I suspect you all are very blase about it all. I know I am.

I've been researching USB cams for Linux. I've got a spiffy webcam running now, but a little head scratching and hair pulling occurred along the way. I thought I'd document some of what I learned.

Today is the day I finally cast off my Ethernet cables. I got wireless networking running on wiener.

Wiener is an old Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop. It dual-boots Windows 98 and Mandrake Linux 9.1, primarily Mandrake. Everybody kept telling me how easy it is to do wireless networking on Linux: you just plug it in and everything automagically happens. Unfortunately, all that ever happened for me was groans and moans.

Then, thanks to Google, I discovered this was a known problem with the Inspiron. This article pointed me to the fix. Once that was applied, everything fell into place.

I brought up the pcmcia subsystem and prepared for my slog through the manuals to figure out the networking configuration. Turns out the darn thing just configured itself, found a network and connected right up to it. Dare I say that once setup, Linux wireless networking is even easier to manage than Windows XP.

Link: BuyMusic.com selling songs to Windows customers. (LA Times via sunspot.net)

A new downloadable music service has appeared on the net. Their motto is Get Loaded, but for Linux users it might as well be Get Lost.

The new Buymusic.com service is terribly proud of their consumer-unfriendly proprietary technology. In their breathless press release, their CEO bleats, "The new buzz phrase is no longer MP3 players, but 'digital music players' or DMPs, and refer to any device that is compliant with BuyMusic.com's format and DRM technology." Seems to me the only buzz around here is from the crack he's smoking.

DRM stands for "digital rights management," which means preventing you from doing what you wish to do with the music you've acquired. They will allow you to use the music in a Microsoft-approved fashion and only with Microsoft-approved products. Otherwise, tough luck.

As if to rub salt into the wound, users of non-proprietary operating systems are redirected to a web page that tells you, "In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher."

This means, of course, I will continue performing illegal music downloads on peer-to-peer networks. This is not my preferred solution. I find the music selection on peer-to-peer networks to be quite limited outside the mainstream genres, the audio quality often poor, and the download reliability very quirky.

I want to give the record labels my money, if they'd only try to sell me something I wanted.

Link: scoirc.txt.

You may have heard that SCO (nee Caldera) and IBM are in a small legal kerfuffle over Linux. Unless you've been following closely, you probably find all the actions and accusations a tad bewildering.

Fortunately, some kind (unknown) person has put together a brief summary of the history. And to make it even easier to follow, it's presented in IRC-speak. LOL!

Get out your rubber chicken and mojo hand. I have just discovered the weirdest, most mysterious bug ever encountered.

I signed off on my broadband installation yesterday morning, but later in the day discovered it was messed up. Frequently, the network would freeze up, and, after a delay, the CABLE indicator on the modem would start flashing, indicating (what I believe to be) retraining after loss of signal.

If I left the system quiescent, everything would be fine. Streaming audio would continue to stream. The occasional email message would come through. It was when I did stuff that started creating connections, primarily web surfing, the problem would occur. The problem was highly intermittent, but would eventually be triggered with enough clicky-clicky on links.

Now, here is the scary part. If I point my web browser to E-Bay, the page will not load and the failure will be triggered. No other web site does this consistently, and E-Bay does so without fail.

And if that isn't strange enough, it gets even weirder. This happens only when I use the Mozilla browser. If I use some other browser, such as Opera or Lynx, the page comes up just fine.

I am at a total loss to explain how, under the known physical laws of this universe, such a failure mode could happen. Therefore, the obvious answer is that it isn't happening, and I am just hallucinating.