M$ drop DRM… April 7, 2007
Posted by metalsam in Technology.2 comments
Real inventive M$….just after Apple drop it, Microsoft follows their lead. But yeah, the point…
is that now the Zune becomes more attractive. It has a feature that lets you share music with other Zune users, but M£ used to have DRM on the music that you shared, you could only use it for 3 days then it deleted itself, or wouldnt let you play it, something like that.
But now, no DRM, means you can keep the music. Hopefully. Which would make the Zune great 
Unless its been recalled…..I havent seen one in the shops since it was released…In fact, Ive never seen anyone with one…
Linux and Dell April 4, 2007
Posted by metalsam in Linux, Technology.add a comment
So Dell anounced a week or two ago that it will offer its customers the option to have their computer arrive with linux preinstalled.
What does this mean for the customers?
More choice. which is always good. They will be able to try linux without the hassle of installing another operating system, and without having to setup a dual boot. Although this is ‘easy’ for the technologically aware, most people would brick it at the thought of doing this. This should also take the hassle out of configuring a new linux install. From personal experience, even ubuntu never works ‘out of the box’, although it does come pretty close. Things like sound never worked properly – I always struggled to record my guitar into my ubuntu desktop. Hopefully Dell wil lsort out all those little things 
What does this mean for linux?
A greater following if anything. Theyre certainly not going to lose followers from Dell offering linux alongside Windows. Hopefully this will also mean a faster development cycle for whatever distro is chosen, as bugs get reported quicker due to more people using it. As always, a gain for one distro is a gain for all distros, as everything in the linux community is shared.
Whats does this mean for M$?
Unlike what many Linux geeks think, this will not be the deathblow to windows. There will always be windows until games manufacturers start releasing games natively for linux (and OSX ). Until that point there will always be windows.
The BBC’s announcement of Dell offering linux:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6506027.stm
Had a look at the Dell website and their not yet offering Linux on any of their machines. I say any, I looked at one (Home, Desktop) and assumed they havent yet 
Open-access? Open source! February 4, 2007
Posted by metalsam in Science, Technology.add a comment
Being a student of physyics, I decided to join the Institute of Physics (IoP). Got a student membership which was dirt cheap
It also comes with a magazine (called Physics World) every month or three, containing book reviews, news and the odd paper.
The most recent issue was concerning the distribution of papers across the internet.
Up until now distribution of these papers has been via journals. Now, these are expensive, so usually you find them in a library (my university has a ridiculous amount of space for these journals). Theyre also expensive due to the peer review process – I dont fully understand how it works, but it involves other scientists going over your paper, your notes and repeating your experiment to confirm the results. Physics World reckons the cost per paper is ~£1500 to £2000. This cost is taken by the journal – so subscription fees to get these journals, and therefore the latest information on physics, is very expensive.
Which is where open access comes in. This is a method being proposed by many physisists, and a resaercher at CERN wrote a few pages on it in Physics World. It involves having work reviewed by other scientists, and then being published on the internet. The money for this comes from the author. The problem with this model is that only well financed researchers can publish their work. The big advantage of the open access model is being able to put up your raw data, lab notes, etc – there just isnt space for all that on paper !
Which is where my idea comes in. Open source.
Alot of papers and material is already available online, and theyre are also alot of blogs and pre-release (papers that have not undergone peer review) websites kicking about.
My idea is to have a website, (some sort of technorati, facebook, blog mashup), that takes full advantage of blogging. You have a blog for different journals (aka catagories), and each post is a paper. A PDF is available for download so you can download a post, or entire blog etc. Each post (aka paper) is tagged with relevant topics that it adresses. The technorati part of the system would keep track of these tags, allowing you to easilly search for relevant articles, or follow up referances.
Using the facebook part of the system, you can look at the publisher, have a discussion, or share relevant work with them. By using the facebook idea of only accepting people with certain email adresses (and email confirmation), you prevent people taking advantage of the system for advertising or spamming.
And of course, like the open access model you can put extra files up.
Peer review can still take place. There would be an isolated section for submitting non-reviewed work, where it would be emailed / RSS to relevant people to check over it. You could even have an option when completing the facebook-style section asking if the person signing up wants to do peer review (again, limited to active physisists by filtering email adresses).
That my two pence.
Technorati: physics open-access iop
HP and their disgraceful mac support January 18, 2007
Posted by metalsam in General, Technology.2 comments
A bit of a continuation from my last post, but with a specific target – HP. Recently thrown into the lime light for spying on their directors.
So yesterday afternoon I was using my printer scanner combo to scan some diagrams into some notes that I was typing up. Id done this several times already, but after the 3rd or so go, the scanner program (some custom made HP thing – as a side note ive always noticed that software made by a hardware manufacturer is crap), would crash halfway through scanning hte final images. It would crash without fail. Id have to restart word and start again. Eventually this no longer worked. So I think, “hmm..Ill register my printer and get a driver update emailed to me”. So I start registering. Upon choosing my OS, I get such fancy choices as ‘MS .NET server’ aswell as XP, 1998, one general option for linux, and several releases of mac OSX, upto 10.3 – Apperantly 10.4 isnt officially supported, or theyre stupid. Probably a combination.
So I wade my way through their website to find a link to contact them. I got this:
http://metalsam.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/picture-1.png
No link to email them ! Bit I could always ring their pricey phone line. I think not.
So I trawl their website again to find the drivers manually. Upon finding the correct driver for Mac OSX 10.4 (It is supported – so wasnt it on the list for registering?) I see hte latest release was in 2005. NOT happy.
Thats my rant for the day – im off to get some chicken soup.
btw – my printer is a psc 1410 – prints fine, but im going to need to be creative for this damned scanner.
Ogg support for itunes/quicktime December 31, 2006
Posted by metalsam in Technology.add a comment
So I was downloading a file my mate recorded on his guitar, that he recorded as an Ogg. Great file format (nerd alert!), but it is not natively supported in itunes, for mac or windows. This website gives you a little install file (mac and windows) for itunes (and possibly quicktime – I would find out but that might require reading):
http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/download.html
For the mac install, once it mounts the drive, click on the mpkg file and it sorts out the rest for you. And just works Oh, and choose the links in the first box on the page. Requires quicktime 7.0 or later.
Vista December 28, 2006
Posted by metalsam in Technology.add a comment
So, M$ have finally got around to releasing Vista….well, sort of – home customers having to wait a few more months yet.
I got a chance to have a go on it at uni, my mate got it installed on his laptop thanks to a contact in the comp sci department. I have to say, it at least looks nice. Even if nothing works on it
It has some very fancy graphics, reminisant of Xgl (Id be curious to know if Xgl development started before Aero and M$ stole the idea, or if they were seperately developed in parrallel.). After seeing the start bar, I felt like I was back using KDE !
However, in hte lecture theatre, we noticed that Vista had trouble to connect to a wireless network – something XP managed easilly. My powerbook had booted and connected before he had logged in A quick read on mstechtoday revealed that this was not an isolated problem. I seriously wonder how thouroughly M$ tested this OS before releasing it.
Good points abouth te OS ? Well, for those who have the hardware, Aero does seem very nice. Office 2007 looks pretty killer too. Also, the next version of DirectX is only going to be released on Vista, so if you want a new game, your going to need to buy Vista (and probably a new computer).
I guess my ‘review’ is slightly biased and based on 10 minutes of using Vista, and from what ive read in other blogs and articles. Im quite content with my mac though. No way in hell in going back to M$ after using this
MESH computers suck. October 6, 2006
Posted by metalsam in Economy & Business, General, Technology.5 comments
NEVER buy a computer / laptop from mesh. Just dont. Heres why:
While searching for a laptop for university, I came across MESH. I soon found a good spec laptop, thats cheap and has a lot of additional hardware alot of other laptops dont have. There was me thinking Id hit the jackpot.
So I ring them up and place an order. They say it will take 10 working days to arrive, which is fine as that is what their website says. So I take a day off work on the day I expect it to arrive and wait. By about 3 in the afternoon I decide to ring them up and find out if its coming or not. Turns out, all orders had been delayed until next week. They were going to ring me, but forgot.
OK, So now Im a bit pissed off, I could have been working that day. They give me a new time (5 more working days.). So I take another day off work to wait in. And it happened again. They meant to ring me….but didnt. It was a tuesday. So I ring them up and ask when its meant to arrive, they say thursday. My dad rings them later that same day and they say friday. He also asks the sales assistant to ring him back with what mesh will offer us in compensation (by this time ive missed out on £100 + theyve breached their own t&c). That guy never rings. So we ring again, asking what we will receive for compensation, and they never ring back.
The next my dad rings them a third time and they finally get back, saying they will not offer anything in compensation. Bastards. So we cancelled the order.
What really got to me was that they never rang to say that it would be late. They never offered compensation after breaching their own contract.
Hence, never buy anything from mesh, or at least never buy anything if your working to a deadline (ie need it before you goto university or a business.).
We pay twice for our information July 29, 2006
Posted by metalsam in General, Technology.4 comments
While thinking about a JoT about just how you tube are able to afford their bandwidth fees, I realised that every bit of information zapped across the internet twice. The person sending it pays their ISP to send it and the person receiving it also pays their ISP to receive it.
Just thought id let you know :/
FlyakiteOSX April 27, 2006
Posted by metalsam in Technology.4 comments
Saw a link for this on greenlightsabers blog. Its a program you can download called flyakiteOSX, to make you windows look like a mac!
After downloading and installing, I can say I quite like it. Looks very nice, and works great, without comprimising hte performance.
It has some nice features, like the object dock you can send windows to, and then it dispears. When you put the mouse at the bottom of the screen, it appears again. Stops you start bar (yes its still there) getting full of windows. Also, the current in teh start bar is a contrasting colour compared the the rest of the windows in the start bar.
Apart from that it looks damn sexy! Go try it out. Its 32 Mb.
Technorati: flyakiteosx mac XP windows
Torrents – To be or not to be? March 28, 2006
Posted by metalsam in Technology.1 comment so far
hehe, sorry about the cliche =p
I was reading a bbc article earlier today,about the american movie industry trying to get torrentspy shut down. Again, this is an example of consumers doing what they want, because the industry wont do it. Other examples are the reselling of gig tickets on ebay. Industry does not like this shift of power, as it forces them to be innovative and to cut prices.
So, AMI (american movie industry) wants torrentspy shut down. Why ? Because they are in breach of copyright. Torrntspy's lawyers have hit back with the fact that their site does not actually host the illegal files. Which is quite true and a valid point.
The AMI is fat and greedy. An actor / actress being paid millions for a film. That money has to come from somewhere….
What they dont seem to relise is that the problem will not go away. After supernova got shut down, mini-nova and several other 'nova' torrent sites sprung up. Theres no way they can stop file sharing, as theres just so many ways of doing it. You dont se ethe AMI taking on MS over file sharing on MSN….
They dont seem to realise that they can make money off this. What needs to happen, is rather than charging the consumer, to put adverts in the film, like on tv, have a cut to an advert. Many more people will watch it as its free (GCSE economics, as price decreases, demand increases), and they can charge people more for adverts, so it all balances out =)
Viva la torrent !
