MPAA spreading comic propoganda October 13, 2009

Shades of Canada’s ludicrous Captain Copyright, Lucky and Flo, Hollywood’s two super sniffing sleuths, are to become a comic book heroes, turned loose to pollute the minds of kids with corporate copyright crap on behalf of Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney.

“The MPAA has allocated two bootleg-sniffing retrievers to a school education campaign and donated another two canines to Malaysian authorities to help pick up the scent of counterfeiters,” says Variety.
The comic was originally leaked to Mininova, and then ridiculed. Read it here, courtesy KN100:

External host

Microsoft propoganda analysis September 9, 2009

A few days ago a post emerged on http://overclock.net/ showing the FUD that Microsoft is currently spreading to Best Buy Employees. The claims made in most of these slides are baseless and simply advertising put out. Read on:

Microsoft aims to compare an OS to a Kernel

In this slide Microsoft are first off not stating any distribution. They are simply comparing Windows to the Linux Kernel. If they had stated a distribution like Ubuntu this table would have been proven wrong definitely, but since they haven’t, their claims are baseless. Lets take a look at the actual content.

First off they try to state that windows has more Camera, iPod and MP3 player compatibility. FIrst off, almost all digital camera’s are just removable flash drive, which every OS supports, iPods other than the touch range are perfectly supported in Ubuntu and MP3 Players? Since this is basically the same situation as with the camera’s, another baseless claim.

Next, they try and say that Windows has more support for printers and scanners than Linux. This is true, if you like installing drivers from CD’s and when you lose them having to mess around on the internet to find the drivers. Out of the box Linux Hardware support is MUCH better than Windows’.

The next comparison is partially true, where they state that Windows has more commercial software then Ubuntu. This is true, but Linux has many more alternatives and most popular Windows only software will run perfectly in WiNE.

Next they say that Windows Live Essentials are not available for Linux. Who the hell want’s Windows Live Essentials? Windows live messenger is a piece of bloated crap, and Pidgin takes it’s place nicely, or if you really want to be able to send that pointless wink aMSN does the job just as well. Just a few weeks ago I was rebuilding a friends machine with Windows XP. We then proceeded to download Windows Live Essentials to get Windows Live Messenger, and once it installed it WOULD NOT log in. We read the error message up on the net and it said it can occur if the time is wrong. Since when does an app’s ability to log in been affected by the system time?! Anyway, we then set the time, and it logged in fine. But now, another problem. The contacts list wouldn’t appear and every time we added a contact it would just disappear, so we followed a guide on the net (again nothing on Microsoft’s ‘extensive’ support site) that called first for a reinstall of WLM so we did, same problem, then there were some rather obscure instructions for deleting the contacts cache, which we did, and still no bone. She then had the bright idea of trying eBuddy (it’s a free online chat client, usually used for machines that don’t have any chat clients installed, and it supports MSN), and it logs in fine with the contacts list. So I then think that it is a bad install of Windows and then rebuild it with a stock Windows XP disk that I used to use. It boots fine, runs fine, but still has the same WLM problem. How did we fix it? Installed aMSN. After two weeks she is still using it happily.

The gaming part of this comparison is largely correct, but the game stated in the comparison actually runs perfectly from within WiNE, and a lot of others do too. Then it states that Linux has NO authorised support. So the support services being sold by Canonical is not authorised then? Video Chat on major IM networks, Not sure what they would classify as main networks, but aMSN video chat works perfectly, Skype works well (I have a guide here dedicated to fixing any issues), and many other networks work perfectly.

You may think that last slide was bad, but this one is by far my favourite. According to Microsoft Ubuntu updates are hard.

Microsoft tries to convince workers that updating Ubuntu is hard

Lets start at the most obvious thing wrong here. Ubuntu updates are as easy and probably easier than Windows Updates.

Ooh look, it’s so difficult

Oh look, the updater popped up telling me it had some IMPORTANT SECURITY UPDATES TO INSTALL!! and if I scroll down a bit There will be a subheading saying optional updates! Its just so hard to tell these days, they make it so difficult! Oh look as well, theres a big button called ‘install updates’ there. I wonder what I click? </sarcasm>. Seriously though, how is that difficult? Look at the windows updater and tell me the above is not more simple.

Oh lawdy, arent Windows updates fun?

Seriously Microsoft, stop spreading this crap. Nobody but total idiots will fall for this crap. Honestly.

Ubuntu Bug Jam Time! August 22, 2009

The Ubuntu Global Jam is an incredible opportunity for the Ubuntu community to unite together around the weekend of 2nd – 4th Oct 2009 to work together to improve Ubuntu. Everyone is able to contribute to the Jam, and everyone is welcome and encouraged to get involved. Curious about how to make a real difference to Ubuntu? This is a great chance to make that difference. To find out how to participate, find a usergroup close to you! A good starting point is http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=183. You don’t have to have any experience to join a Jam, there are Bug jams, Translation jams, Packaging Jams, take your pick! You can work on a project, whatever you want. It’s a good time to meet friends you talk to on IRC, or on the forums also! It really is a great event and symbolizes what Ubuntu is about. For more info see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam.

Skype finally working on Ubuntu properly (sound sharing too!) July 22, 2009

Ever wondered why when you play a game on Ubuntu and try to use Skype, it wouldnt work, or why playing music while chatting doesn’t work? Well here is a quick and fast solution that works very very well.

First off, Click system, preferences , sound. Then set the top four drop down boxes to Alsa.

Next, open skype, click the little skype logo in the bottom left of the skype chats window, then click options, Then click sound devices. In here, set the top one to your microphone, and the bottom two to PulseAudio.
There you have it, now ubuntu and skype can live in harmony!

OK, i am really starting to love Microsoft IE8 advertising material July 5, 2009

Thier latest advertising is ‘get the facts’. More like ‘Get our opinion disguised as facts’. Its pathetic. Don’t believe me? Read: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-comparison.aspx
Lets go through it.
Security
(ie8 ticked, no other browser ticked)
So Microsoft, those holes that existed in IE6 but still exist in IE8 are emerging threats are they?

Privacy
(ie8 ticked, no other browser ticked)
InPrivate Browsing and InPrivate Filtering help Internet Explorer 8 claim privacy victory.
First off, they are comparing ie8 to an old version of firefox, in firefox 3.5 Private browsing is there, Chrome has always had it, so why isnt it ticked? Then theres Inprivate filtering, which essentially deletes a cookie if its used on more than one site. I do not see why this is a privacy risk.
Ease of use
(you guessed it, ie8 ticked, others not)
This one makes me laugh the most. Chrome. Hard to use? If you can’t use chrome then your too retarded for the internet.
Web standards (my personal favourite)
(all three ticked)
They say that firefox and chrome support HTML5, but IE8 has the best support for current. So, when will IE8 pass acid2 then?

Developer tools
(firefox and ie ticked, chrome not)
No comment other than Chrome comes with some of the best developer tools i have ever used.

Reliability
(IE8 ticked, others not)
They say that only IE8 has tab isolation and crash handling. To be honest i think that those ideas came from chrome, so this is a little cheeky.
Customization
All three ticked
They say that firefox may have the most addons, but the functionality of ALL those addons is allready in IE. So wheres my adblock plus, wheres my personas, wheres my skipscreen, wheres my tinymenu? I could go on.

Compatibility
(ie8 ticked, others not)
So Microsoft, what about sites with transparent PNG’s? they don’t count as sites do they?

Manageability
(ie8 ticked, no others)
they say that Neither Firefox nor Chrome provide guidance or enterprise tools.
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? GUIDANCE? GOOGLE! ENTERPRISE TOOLS? LIKE WHAT?

Performance
(all three ticked)
They say that Knowing the top speed of a car doesn’t tell you how fast you can drive in rush hour. To actually see the difference in page loads between all three browsers, you need slow-motion video. This one’s also a tie.
This is kind of true, but in raw benchmarks IE8 is by far the slowest, chrome the fastest, and Firefox kinda behind Chrome.

Sorry about the rant!

MDF Ubuntu how to mount June 27, 2009

Yeah, well I found how to mount MDF files, I just did this on a 7gb mdf and it worked, so yeah

Open a terminal: CD to the directory where the mdf is located. How? Well:
Type LS, that will tell you what folders you can move into, then type CD foldername, but type the first 3 or 4 charecters and then press tab, it will autocomplete the folder name for you. Once LS is listing your mdf file, type into a terminal:
mount nameoffile.mdf /media/cdrom0 -t iso9660 -o loop
and it should appear in nautilus.

phorm is not spotify June 21, 2009

I have been seeing a lot of discussion on whether Phorms advertising is going to be the same as Spotify, and i just wanted to clarify one thing. Its not. For example:
Spotify takes your music habits that i dont care about, and plays them in exchange for a useful great service. Phorm on the other hand, what does it offer? ‘enhanced browser protection?’ erm firefox blocks out most attack sites, so does google, and so does OpenDNS.

add remove not openning? Apt-get giving Segmentation faulty Tree? Update not working? Heres a solution June 20, 2009

Fire up a terminal, and type into it
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/*.bin

Will fix all 3 of these problems, it just resets apt-get back to defaults

Its not Linux, and why is everyone so hung up on freedom? June 18, 2009

So today I read the GNU/Linux FAQ, and lets just say I wont be calling the entire system ‘Linux’ anymore. So I have two points to make here.
First off, Please don’t call Ubuntu, or Red hat, or any Linux kernel based Distro ‘Linux’:
The reason why? Because its not. The whole system is not Linux. Here’s a little history for you. In ~1982 A project called GNU was in progress, attempting to build a free as in price and free as in freedom operating system, But they lacked a kernel. Then, around ~1992 Linus, the ‘poster boy’ for GNU/Linux came along and wrote Linux, a free as in price, an free as in freedom Kernel, Licenced under the GNU licence, which is also known as Copyleft. The GNU project then used this kernel to create what most of us today know is Linux, BUT, if you had spent years working on an OS and someone else wrote a small part of that, don’t you think that you deserve some of the credit? The same thing happened with GNU/Linux. For some reason everyone was led to believe that the entire system is Linux. Mainly this was marketing, seeing as for example Ubuntu Linux sounds better than Ubuntu GNU/Linux, But seriously, giving Linus all the credit is wrong. He deserves a lot of the credit, but GNU deserves it too.

Second off, I wanted to share my opinion on something GNU developers have been raging about for years. Proprietary Software.
I believe that FOSS is a lot better than proprietary software, but proprietary is always going to be round. Sure, it erodes your freedom, but seriously, I feel i have enough freedom with my nVidia Proprietary drivers, my Adobe flash plug-in for FireFox, and my MacroMedia Fireworks. I use every on of these on a daily basis and there is no viable alternative in my eyes. Macromedia fireworks is what I use, and I’m not about to learn a new tool just for a little more freedom. Adobe Flash, this is a tough one, since Adobe are normally bitches with FOSS, but I have to use this, since almost any interactive site on the net uses it, and not having it is just not viable, and the nVidia drivers? There is no FOSS for them that works as fast or as efficiently as these do, and to be honest I don’t really care about their source code. They work, that’s it. If they have hidden crap in them, that’s just dandy, I will never know or care. Sure if there was an OSA then I would switch, since I am a big user of open source software (countless programs), and I find the programs to be of the highest quality. Oh, and another thing. This is more of a question than a rant, its about AVI. Is AVI classed as proprietary? I use it for everything. I have converted all my MP3 music to OGG because OGG is good if not better than MP3, and no law suits
My main question is this. Why are some people so disgusted when i tell them i use a few proprietary bits? I have no choice really. At least I don’t run Windows! This is one of the points I agree with Linus on though, that Proprietary, while not as totally awesome as FOSS, it always going to be round and nothing we do will stop it.

In other news, Microsoft are going to donate $1.13 to charity every time someone downloads IE8 (automatic updates on the company’s OS included). Anyone else reminded of those old “every time you [insert action here], God kills a kitten”?

Oh, if anyone wants to read that FAQ, its here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html. It’s a long read but it’s worth it.

Mentos get thier revenge June 9, 2009

AHAHAHAHA!