United States Pirate Party.

The Pirate Party caught my attention while reading Slashdot and now I’m really thinking of switching parties. I’ve traditionally been a Democrat, and I’m not ashamed to say I have had a huge problem with the way Republicans were running things for a long time. Reading the Pirate Party platform I realize that my views line up directly with theirs.

The biggest points which I agree with can be found in their platform and in some of the other literature on their site.  The first one I’d like to point out is how our country currently protects physical mail with all of its ‘Federal Might’ but at the same time can watch online mail and traffic as it pleases.  Personal communications WHATEVER THE MEDIUM should be protected under the law, not just those that go through the postal service. The Pirate Party supports this view whole-heartedly.

Another major point of the Pirate Party is the one which has given it its name. I am a musician and the issue of music ‘Piracy’ is one which interests me a great deal. What it all boils down to however is why should the average consumer, who is doing nothing more then using technology as it is designed, be punished simply for the publishers benefit? What is a publisher or producer for anyway? The only reason an artist needs the publisher is to help connect the musician with the physical creation and distribution of CD’s or Records. With modern technology one does not NEED the creation and distribution of CD’s or any other physical media; so why are they getting thousands of dollars suing people for online ‘Piracy’? The musicians are the only ones who have any right to complain, yet often make more money at concerts then they will ever see from actual record sales. The government has lost sight of why these businesses and laws came into existence in the first place.

I realize that this is quickly turning into a rant so I’ll keep it down to one more point. What both major parties are arguing about right now is really getting ridiculous. If you tear away all the name calling and finger pointing both sides really want the same things. For example: a good economy, as little bloodshed as possible overseas, better schools, fair taxes, a balanced budget. Once you get past those all you have left are the ‘hot button’ issues: abortion and same sex marriage to name a few. Now don’t get me wrong, those issues are important, yet in the grand scheme of things I would honestly say effect perhaps 25% of Americans. Now contrast that to the number of people who use E-mail or Instant Messanger or downloads media or even streams media on something like YouTube. I would estimate that that effects more like 95% of Americans today in one way or another. I’m not saying we should completely forget these hot button issues yet we should be paying much more attention to the issues which effect the most people. Reform needs to take place and the Pirate Party seems like the way to do it.

Thanks for putting up with my thoughts,
~Drago3711

A mouse any Final Fantasy fan would drool over.

Designed by Andrey Chirkov and art direction by Svyatoslav Saakyan, this unique mouse strikes me as a cross between Final Fantasy and traditional steam punk styling. The design seems sound, but I do slightly question the clicking mechanism. As long as strong materials are used I don’t see a problem, unfortunately a number of good designs get ruined by cheap parts in the name of price. The designs come from a design firm based in Moscow, and no word yet if the design will actually go into production; let alone in the US.

Take a look for yourself

Windows 7 Release candidate

My beta expericence

The Windows 7 release candidate is now out, exclusively for MSDN and TechNet users. Apparently this new version is going to be free to use for one whole year, unlike the beta which expires in August. This new version is going to open to the public on May 5th, and I’m going to be one of many who I’m sure will be switching from the beta to the RC versions. I have been pleased so far by the improved features and functionality of the beta. I am looking forward to running the official release candidate through its paces. I’ll keep you all posted,
-Drago3711

source:
HERE

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

I originally installed Ubuntu Hardy Haron onto my laptop, and was greatly impressed. As time went on I migrated up to Intrepid Ibex, but the transition was far from smooth. I had a number of driver issues, and the system I had left after all my tinkering was weak to say the least. I hadn’t had the time to go through and completely revamp the whole thing. With the 9.04 release however, I was motivated to finally give my system a jump-start.

9.04 is the first release to officially support the new ext4 file system, so I figured I’d give it a shot. In doing some research I saw that it was possible to migrate from ext3 ((which I had been using )) up to the newer file-system, but there are a number of drawbacks. After a bit of thought, I decided that I could sacrifice one of my existing partitions, and create a fresh install. The setup was mostly painless. The installer did attempt to use ext3 instead of ext4, but switching was as simple as going to the manual setup instead of the guided. Ubuntu is wonderful about keeping your settings all inside your home folder so copying it into my fresh install kept everything the way I like it.

The first thing I noticed was the boot-up speed. I had heard people talk about ‘25 second boots’ but I really didn’t believe my system would get that kind of performance, especially since its a 2 year old laptop. People are not joking when they say it boots FAST. I have yet to time it, but I would be surprised if it took more then thirty seconds. Another thought is the upgraded dual screen support. One of the main reasons I have kept a windows system around is because of its painless ability to extend my desktop instead of just mirroring it. Ubuntu 9.04 now has a display manager applet which allows for easy control of multiple monitors. Now I can use one monitor when I’m off at class or elsewhere, and when I return to my setup its a few clicks away from multi-screen bliss.

Overall this release has been what I have come to expect from the Ubuntu development team; a clean, sleek OS with all that I require in an easy to use setup. I am going to keep experimenting, and I’ll keep you posted on what I find.

Useful Links:
Ubuntu Home

ext4 info

A Man Named Pearl

My college hosts one of the stops for the “Southern Circuit’ and I’ve watched a number of the independent films which are on it.  This last one is definately worth mention.  “A Man Named Pearl” is about a man from South Carolina, Pearl Fryar, who has transformed his three achres of yard into one of the worlds greatest topiary gardens.  Honestly, I would not have been able to spell topiary before this film, but I was blown away by his self taught artistic ability and down to earth nature.  The garden is located in Bishopville South Carolina and is definately worth a look.  I think the film, and Mr. Fryar’s art speak for themselves, so I’ll leave it at that.

Some links to more information:
Pearl Fryar’s Official Site

The Documentary’s Site

IMDB’s take on the film

Wine (continued 2)

So I’ve continued my WINE experiments by trying to install SSH Secure Shell on my Ubuntu partition. Now some of you may be wondering why I would shy away from using PuTTy or some other open source app. I would normally agree, but I really like the file transfer GUI that Secure Shell gives, so I figured this would be another good opportunity to keep experimenting.

So I downloaded the installer from my university a while ago, but a quick google search will give you likes to other universities what have it, so *shrug* go get it if you want it. The installer worked just like IMVU did, without a problem. There was one hitch when I actually started the program. All the fonts were garbled and unreadable. Luckily it was a simple fix. All one has to do is change the font in the settings menu to Courier, 10, and it works like a charm. (I had to restart the program to get the setting to take effect). Other then that it worked from the getgo. I don’t have much more for you, but I’ll be back with more in the near future.

-Drago3711

Mac bot-net

Surfing some of my favorite sites I found a bit of info about a bot-net made entirely out of Mac’s. This did not really seem like a good idea until I remembered the normal user of Mac laptops here at college…..the entirely computer illiterate sorority girls who pick it because it was ‘pretty’. Now I don’t mean to say that Mac’s are bad machines, they are just a bit too hard to customize for my liking. If your average user has the mindset that their OS is immune from everything, why would they buy or maintain an anti-virus? Simple answer you wouldn’t. Suddenly this goes from a really dumb idea to a really good one. ((from the bot-net’s perspective)) I mean sure, you wont get nearly the size of a conventional bot-net, and you’ll never get the capabilities that go along with it. But honestly its unlikely that most of the victims would even admit to being hijacked.

Well, enough from me, how about some actual info about the issue? OK, from what I’ve seen/read it appears it comes from an infected copies of iWork09 and CS4. It gives remote root access, so really no way around a reformat to be SURE you’ve purged it. I’m not the authority on these things by any means, but I think its definitely worth looking into. Another useful tidbit is that it doesnt seem to be viral, it just infects the host who installs it. So if you installed pirated versions of those two recently, well, I’d look into it.  If you get all legit software and wouldn’t DREAM of using p2p sites ((I’m sure SOMONE like that exists…somewhere)) then you have nothing to worry about :] .

for some more info about it:
HERE
and
HERE

IMVU free credits.

Ok, so I honestly am not a huge fan of the IMVU software, but I have used it and I’ve gotten a number of questions about how to get more of the promo credits.  These can only be used for buying your own stuff…but thats all most people want to do anyway right? Well, I’m off topic again… here’s how I survive without spending a dime.

1) New Products page

By far the most useful this page gives you 50 credits just for visiting. ((it only works once a day))

2) FreeSpin

Also very useful, ((and also only works once per day)) this is a slot machine that sometimes gives out free credits.

3)Cheap Promo Items

Exactly what the name says.  If you’re new to the whole thing, or just need a few things on a budget, this is your best option.

4)Treasure Hunt Game

I rarely use it, but its a game which will sometimes pay out credits.  Last I checked its on the fritz, but you never know; they might get it back running.

Wine (Continued)

Ok, so a few min later, haha.  I’ve managed to get IMVU working.  Its really an easy process.

1) install wine (I’m assumeing you’ve already done this, if you have problems use the add/remove tool under applications, or check out wine’s hompage)

2)download the standard IMVU windows installer.  I got it from here

3)now we have two options on this step.  I right clicked on the file (which ended up downloading onto my desktop) and clicked “Open with ‘Wine Windows Program Loader’”. you could also go into the terminal and type in:

wine installIMVU*

this will run the .exe with wine and set it installing.  I used the default directories it wanted, and it ended up inside my .wine C\programs folder. It even placed a shortcut to IMVU through wine on my desktop.

4) I bumped into my first problem here.  Whenever I tried to run IMVU I only got a blank screen for the virtual world.  This is because the graphics acceleration is not completely without bugs, so I ended up setting it to the ‘Standard Graphics (fast)’ graphics mode.  This isn’t the most beutiful mode, but it runs fine, and fast as the name suggests.

This turned into a tutorial a lot faster then I had intended, but oh well, haha. If you have any quiestions leave a comment, or contact me any other way you know how .  So far I would definatly say wine is a wonderful tool, and i’m going to continue playing with it.  I’ll keep you updated, till then, farewell.

-Drago3711

Wine (windows emulation)

So some of you may be wondering why I’m installing Wine on my laptop when its triple boot with Windows 7 and Windows XP.  Well, you’re right, I’m probably an idiot yet I want to get a feel for the program.  So far so good.  I’ve managed to install it using the ‘add/remove’ system and i’ve gotten the included program (notepad) running without issue.  My next step is to get a program not designed for linux running.  A few of my online buddy’s have requested a look into the IMVU client, which I have seen reports of being compatable with Wine.

All this work was started in my head because a friend of mine is requesting help running Windows programs under a OSX environment.  A little research has pointed me to Darwine HERE which should do the trick, but I need some more experience with Wine before I really recomend it to anyone beyond the nerd/geek community.  I’ll be back explaining how it goes, and any hangups I’ve had, catch you all later.

-Drago3711